VMware Introduces New Kubernetes Engine to Their Cloud Services Portfolio

As with many cloud computing technologies, Kubernetes is difficult to run without the help of a managed service provider or an as-a-Service tool. Today, VMware announced the beta of their new VMware Kubernetes Engine (VKE), a Kubernetes-as-a-Service offering. This is an enterprise-grade container platform that helps enterprises use, secure, and reduce costs on their Kubernetes workloads.

VMware runs their services through their Cloud Services portfolio. It is their collection of SaaS-based offerings designed to help with operations across clouds. All the services in this portfolio are designed to integrate with one another effectively.

Containers and Kubernetes have grown in popularity in recent years. VMware says the growth is astounding. Many enterprises don’t have the skill or tools to get the most out of running Kubernetes though. Often, there needs to be a dedicated team to focus specifically on running these containers. It’s difficult to manage a constantly growing ecosystem without a dedicated team.

VMware’s solution, Smart Cluster, contains a collection of policies that capture the desired state of a compliant Kubernetes cluster. This tool comes in both a developer and production centric cluster type. It also helps with architectural decisions based on abstraction. Smart Cluster comes with three abstraction models – abstract nothing, abstract the control plane only, and abstract everything. Although most customers will probably abstract everything, VMware wanted to include various options to increase ease of use.

VMware set out to make managing an abundance of clusters easier for enterprises. It is difficult when companies have hundreds of clusters without the right resources. VKE provides a simple tree structure to organize resources into logical containers, set policies on select containers, and have those policies inherit recursively down to the children containers. Each customer environment in VKE is isolated from other customer environments.

Another area of concern amongst cloud users is optimizing cost. VKE uses a pay-as-you-go model, a growing necessity for enterprises using the cloud or cloud workloads.

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