At†VMworld 2017,†VMware, Inc. and Pivotal Software, Inc., in collaboration with Google Cloud, unveiled†Pivotal Container Service†(PKS), a new product that enables enterprises and service providers to deliver production-ready Kubernetes on VMware vSphere and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), with constant compatibility to Google Container Engine (GKE). The new offering is expected to become available in calendar Q4 2017, and ship as a standalone product able to integrate with Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) and VMware’s software-defined data center (SDDC) infrastructure.
PKS to Help Enterprises Simplify and Operationalize Kubernetes with Constant Compatibility to Google Container Engine
Pivotal and VMware are applying their deep enterprise expertise to launch PKS, a commercial release of the†open source Kubo technology, to help Global 2000 companies operationalize Kubernetes. Software teams that have decided on containers as their unit of deployment need a reliable, scalable container orchestration platform like Kubernetes. PKS will help operations teams deliver a hardened, maintainable container platform, while giving developers on-demand access to a production-ready environment featuring high availability, security, and multi-tenancy across private and public clouds.
In November 2016, Pivotal and Google Cloud partnered on Kubo, a joint engineering effort to bring the multi-cloud deployment capabilities of Pivotal Cloud Foundry (via BOSH) to Kubernetes clusters — providing a uniform way to instantiate, deploy, and manage highly-available Kubernetes clusters on any cloud. As enterprises and developers agree upon on a common standard for managing containers, VMware has teamed up with Pivotal and Google Cloud, and is committing significant R&D resources to jointly develop Kubo and build solutions on top of it that enhance the operational readiness of Kubernetes.
The initial release of PKS will feature Kubernetes via BOSH, VMware NSX, and a jointly developed version of Open Services Broker API that allows easy integration of GCP services into PKS applications. PKS will feature cross-cloud security and network connectivity including container network interface (CNI) compatible services powered by NSX. PKS will be seamlessly integrated with VMware vSphere, enabling customers to use VMware’s unified SDDC infrastructure for containers and VMs.
Moreover, a critical benefit for enterprise customers will be PKS’ constant compatibility to Google Container Engine (GKE), which is continuously powered by the latest Kubernetes release and features a fully managed experience backed by Google SRE (Site Reliability Engineering). As a result, PKS’ constant compatibility with GKE will bring users the latest container-native innovations in a secure and consistent environment. With PKS and GKE, users will gain the workload portability, operational simplicity and agility to speed business outcomes.
PKS to Offer Deep Integration with VMware Infrastructure and Management
PKS customers will be able take advantage of deep integrations with VMware infrastructure and management offerings for:
- Enabling persistent storage for stateful applications via the vSphere Cloud Provider, which provides access to vSphere storage powered by†VMware vSAN or traditional SAN and NAS storage,
- Automation and governance for enterprises via†vRealize Automation and provisioning of service provider clouds with VMware vCloud Director,
- Monitoring and troubleshooting of virtual infrastructure via VMware vRealize Operations, and
- Metrics monitoring of containerized applications via†Wavefront by VMware.
PKS Preconfigured for Google Cloud Platform
PKS will include a jointly developed and maintained implementation of Open Services Broker API and will be continuously compatible with GKE. This will make it easy for PKS users to incorporate innovative GCP services like BigQuery, Spanner, and Machine Learning in their applications, and will provide fast and easy application portability between PKS and GKE.
Pivotal and VMware to Bring PKS to Market
Fully supported by Pivotal and VMware, PKS will be best suited for large- to mid-sized enterprises as well as service providers. Pivotal and VMware will both sell the product directly, via their respective channels, and via the VMware Cloud Provider partner program. PKS will also be brought to market by Dell EMC on VxRail Appliances and VxRack Systems, which offer a foundation of proven hyper-converged infrastructure and data protection.
Pricing and Availability
PKS is expected to become available in calendar Q4 2017. Pricing details to be released upon general availability.
