Google’s Kubernetes Available On Microsoft Azure Container Service

Containers are an ever-growing feature of the cloud world and Microsoft has announced that open-source system Kubernetes is now available its Azure Container Service (ACS).

From today Kubernetes will be available as one of three choices of orchestrator, along with DC/OS (data centre operating system) and Docker Swarm, giving companies added flexibility when it comes to the development, testing and deployment of virtualised applications.

A preview version of support for Kubernetes was first announced in November and following “valuable feedback from customers” Microsoft has improved the integration and made it generally available to all users.

Kubernetes support

Writing on the Azure blog, Saurya Das – Program Manager for Azure Linux – said: “Azure is the only public cloud platform that provides a container service with the choice of the three most popular open source orchestrators available today.

“ACS’s approach of openness has been pivotal in driving the adoption of containers on Azure. Enterprises and startups alike recognise the momentum around ACS and the benefit it brings to their applications, which includes agile deployment, portability and scalability.

“With today’s news, we again deliver on our goal of providing our customers the choice of open-source orchestrators and tooling that simplifies the deployment of container based applications in the cloud.”

As well as the general availability, Microsoft has also announced a preview of Windows Server Containers with Kubernetes and a DC/OS 1.8.8 update which includes a new orchestration framework, the addition of GPU support and a number of other improvements to the  user interface.

Google-developed Kubernetes first rose to prominence in 2014, gaining early support from the likes of IBM, Microsoft and Red Hat as a way to manage containers and move them between different cloud environments.

Control of the system has since been handed over to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and integrations with companies such as Canonical and container security firm Aporeto have followed as the technology has continued to grow.

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