Mirantis Collects Kontena Kubernetes Cast-Offs

Source:-sdxcentral.com

The leadership and engineering talent of Finland-based Kontena traded their jerseys in today and became the latest addition to Mirantis’ expanding Kubernetes lineup.

Mirantis did not acquire any of Kontena’s assets or its IP as the vendor is currently in the midst of “liquidating its assets,” explained Dave Van Everen, SVP of marketing at Mirantis in an interview with SDxCentral. However, similar to the Docker Enterprise deal, Mirantis is further driving brain gain in recruiting the leadership and “talented Kubernetes experts” of Kontena, Van Everen said.

In particular, Van Everen pointed to work that Kontena did with Pharos, a pre-built Kubernetes distribution (distro) like Docker EE or Red Hat OpenShift, and Lens, which is a multi-cluster dashboard for Kubernetes similar to Grafana or the standard Kubernetes dashboard. According to Van Everen, Pharos and Lens — along with the minds and expertise behind the Kontena platforms — will “inform the Mirantis product roadmap.”

The announcement follows Mirantis’ November acquisition of Docker Inc.’s Enterprise business that saw the company gain ownership of all Docker Enterprise customers, contracts, strategic technology alliances, partner programs, and 300 Docker employees.

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How It Gets Integrated
Kontena discovered Docker in 2014, and began building the platform that they wanted to use for administering containers. In 2018, Pharos hit the market aiming to simplify the management of Kubernetes clusters through a graphical user interface. It is designed to work on any infrastructure and features tools for updating and maintaining the system with all the security fixes and platform updates. It is commercially supported and covers the use of Kubernetes itself.

Lens had previously been an exclusive feature on Pharos until last fall, when it was introduced as a standalone product. The Kubernetes management system touts visibility and hands-on troubleshooting capabilities, and built-in user management and integration APIs with compatible support to most standard external authentication systems.

While seemingly everyone wants to adopt Kubernetes, it remains a complex challenge for many. Ultimately, Kontena was attempting to make Kubernetes easier to consume and use, which Van Everen said is aligned with Mirantis’ goals.

Mirantis, Docker Marriage Update
The rise of Kubernetes as the de facto container orchestration platform has proven to be a challenge for many vendors, even rendering some competitors obsolete. Perhaps no one has felt the Kubernetes boom more so than container pioneer Docker Inc., which imploded last November.

To save its ship from being docked for good, Mirantis acquired Docker Inc.’s Enterprise business, which has been viewed as a leading product in the space. A Forrester “New Wave” report from 2018 had the platform in the “leader” category alongside Red Hat and Rancher Labs.

“The Docker Enterprise integration is progressing very well,” Van Everen said. “We’ve had roadmap conversations with many customers and they’re excited about the unified technology direction we’re moving in.”

Mirantis is planning to roll out a new Docker Enterprise Engine (EE) update “in a few weeks,” according to Van Everen. The last major release (3.0) was last April, and included more customization, easier containerized application development, and its own version of a hosted Kubernetes service dubbed the Docker Kubernetes Service (DKS). The updates were also offered through a fully managed version of the platform for organizations that want a more abstracted experience.

What’s Mirantis’ Future?
The Docker brand is one of the most prominent names in the cloud container ecosystem. While perhaps shallow, that name recognition remains a significant advantage for the Docker EE container platform.

From both a business and a technology perspective, Van Everen said that the union of Docker Enterprise and Mirantis addresses the gaps on both sides that existed prior to the deal. “Docker Enterprise container technology was the perfect complement to the Kubernetes-as-a-service (KaaS) capabilities we brought to market and that perspective was validated with dozens of conversations with industry analysts and customers.”

According to Van Everen, the deal has strengthened the market’s perception of Mirantis as a company with a strong open source heritage and services capability, and with experience solving complex lifecycle management and interoperability challenges in containers and cloud infrastructure.

“Mirantis is now regarded as an open alternative to IBM/Red Hat and VMware, which was not necessarily the case prior to the deal,” he claimed. Adding that the company “will continue to be opportunistic,” in bolstering its position as a container management platform.

Mirantis is also continuing its work with AT&T on the carrier’s Airship deployment. Mirantis announced early last year that it scored an eight-figure, multi-year deal to provide AT&T with core infrastructure software to run the carrier’s 5G services. The central component of that core infrastructure is Kubernetes and is part of AT&T’s previously announced Airship initiative. Van Everen was unable to provide detail on the matter, however he did confirm that Mirantis is “fulfilling its obligations in the agreement.”