Nutanix makes a PaaS at greater Kubernetes control
If you’re a technology company thinking of launching a service related to the open source Kubernetes cloud container orchestration system, then you are permitted to name that product with a K… whatever brand name you pick.
Enterprise cloud computing company Nutanix has taken this convention seriously and now launched its Karbon Platform Services offering.
As tough as carbon (sorry, karbon) and perhaps as explosively powerful as carbonite (sorry, karbonite) Karbon Platform Services is a Kubernetes-based multi-cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) with automated system-managed security for the development of microservices-based applications.
Kubernetes is of course a powerful means of achieving ‘desired state management’ so that the Kubernetes (K8) cluster services can be fed a specific configuration to run on defined ‘worker’ spaces… but Nutanix still calls it configuration (not konfiguration), thankfully.
What’s inside Karbon Platform Services?
So what’s in the box here? Essentially, it’s a turnkey managed services experience for [cloud] software developers to build and run cloud-native applications while enabling them to decouple applications from the underlying infrastructure.Which, fundamentally is Nutanix’s central technology proposition and pretty much always has been.
There’s Ops here too. It provides IT operations teams with a simplified and consistent application lifecycle management and security framework.
The kompany (sorry, company) points out that Kubernetes, along with its ecosystem of cloud native technologies, continues to rapidly evolve, making it increasingly difficult to implement without extensive technical resources.
Nutanix also says that developer teams need to be able to use both on-premises and public cloud-based Kubernetes deployments without compromising their ability to manage data, applications and IT resources simply and effectively.
“IT resources are the engines that power digital enterprises. But as a company scales, adopts hybrid cloud and manages an increasing number of applications, supporting engineering needs can be challenging for IT,” said Rajiv Mirani, CTO at Nutanix. “With Karbon Platform Services, we aim to simplify application development and orchestration while streamlining the relationship between IT and development teams to support our customers’ DevOps strategies.”
Mirani says that Karbon Platform Services builds on the core Kubernetes lifecycle management capabilities initially introduced with Karbon as an integrated component of the Nutanix HCI software.
Karbon dating (back to 2019)
Let’s remember that in April of 2019 Nutanix introduced Karbon with the aim of dramatically simplifying the configuration, deployment and lifecycle management of Kubernetes clusters while offering a native user experience with open APIs.
This new offering brings automated, system-managed security and multi-tenancy to run a wide range of microservices-based applications across multiple cloud infrastructures.
Karbon Platform Services provides cross-cloud data mobility and hybrid application management through transparent, WAN-optimised data pipelines and extensible data interfaces. This feature gives enterprises the flexibility to bring their own services and leverage the broader Kubernetes ecosystem.
“With Karbon Platform Services, IT operations teams can leverage a consistent security and API model with unified observability for data and applications across cloud. It provides automated, system-managed security with built-in multi-tenancy and role-based access control (RBAC) for the rich services,” said the company, in a press statement.
In addition to Karbon Platform Services, Nutanix also announced Xi Calm, a hosted version of its application management and orchestration solution to support DevOps teams, which is under development.
Nutanix co-founder and CEO Dheeraj Pandey speaking at his firm’s .NEXT 2020 virtual user conference – image: screen capture.