CoreOS Inc, have released Tectonic Preview, a commercial container infrastructure offering that supports Kubernetes v1.0, CoreOS, Docker and rkt.
The announcement of CoreOS Inc’s Tectonic Preview was coordinated with the release of Kubernetes v1.0, Google’s container orchestration platform, at the OSCON conference. The Tectonic blog states that Tectonic Preview provides users access to Kubernetes 1.0, together with 24x7 enterprise support, Kubernetes guides and Kubernetes training.
Tectonic is built upon CoreOS Linux, and utilises etcd (a distributed key/value store) for application coordination, fleet to provide additional fault tolerance to systemd units for running higher-level components, flannel to provide networking and etcd lease management, and Kubernetes to manage a cluster of Linux containers (such as Docker and CoreOS’ rkt).
The Tectonic console web-based user interface provides a unified dashboard to view running applications, and allows the deployment and management of associated containers. The Tectonic blog states that Tectonic provides full support for Kubernetes namespaces, which allows teams to organise infrastructure logically and provides the ‘flexibility to deploy containers in any architecture’ required.
InfoQ sat down with Alex Polvi, CEO of CoreOS, and asked questions about this latest release of Tectonic, upcoming plans for the platform, and the recently announced Tectonic Summit conference, which will be held at New York in December.
InfoQ: Currently Tectonic is available within AWS or on-premise. Are there plans to support other cloud vendors, or offerings such as OpenStack?
Polvi: Tectonic can run in your own environment, whether it is AWS, Google, Azure or your datacenter. We have specific installation instructions for AWS and plan to invest in similar tools for other cloud platforms as well. Today Tectonic Preview is available in coordination with the Kubernetes 1.0 release, so those that want to try out the 1.0 release can do so on the Tectonic platform. Previously Tectonic was in private beta over the past three months, so the Preview is the next step to open Tectonic to those who want to try it, specifically on AWS or on their own hardware. Support for more clouds is underway and we’ll announce availability when ready.
InfoQ: What advantage does Tectonic have other the other Kubernetes platforms that are currently available?
Polvi: Tectonic is the only enterprise ready distribution of Kubernetes on the market that you can sign up for today. Many vendors have announced intentions to do similar things, but Tectonic is the leading option for companies that want something today.
On the technical front, CoreOS has developed a number of the key technologies required to run Kubernetes in production. This includes etcd, the database behind Kubernetes, which is the heartbeat of the entire system. Beyond having core components within Kubernetes, CoreOS has also developed a number of supporting technologies that make it possible to have an enterprise ready stack. This includes flannel, a networking overlay technology design specifically for Kubernetes, and rkt, a secure container runtime that is offered as an alternative to the Docker runtime. Last but not least, CoreOS Linux is the leading Linux distribution for running Kubernetes on top of.
Tectonic Preview helps you make the most out of complex distributed systems technologies with a commercially supported curated setup of a container platform, with CoreOS experts supporting you 24x7. CoreOS is dedicated to helping in every way to continue the momentum of getting companies running on this new way of running infrastructure – what we call Google’s infrastructure for everyone else (GIFEE).
InfoQ: There are several interesting articles promoted on social media that remind developers/operators that many of us (or the organisations we represent) are not operating a Google or Netflix scale - what are you thoughts about this in relation to Kubernetes being a Google-like infrastructure?
Polvi: We think there are a lot of lessons to be learn from hyper scale that are very applicable to companies of all sizes. Operations teams want the benefits of utilization, high availability and scalability. They do not have them today because of the complexity and software development required to do it. Kubernetes crosses the threshold of difficulty in managing clusters, which is why we have combined it with the CoreOS stack – unlocking a lot of value for all types of companies. For users, staying ahead of the competition means developing and iterating rapidly, and this new way of running infrastructure thanks to Tectonic is an important way to enable that.
InfoQ: The announcement of the Tectonic Summit later in the year sounds great. What can attendees expect to learn?
Polvi: Tectonic Summit is a two-day event in New York City focused on business use cases and the value of running infrastructure in this new, distributed way enabled by containers. Business leaders should expect to learn about these technologies that have given way to increased productivity, security and agility, and be a part of the discussion on steps to take together in the future to ensure that the most efficient technologies are in place to help achieve the next level of innovation.
Also, we announced a series of workshops that will be held around the world to provide training on Kubernetes, CoreOS and Tectonic. The workshops have a select number of seats to ensure anyone attending gets what they need to experience using these container technologies, and come away with a better understanding of the container ecosystem as a whole.
Additional information on Tectonic Preview can be found on the Tectonic website and also the Tectonic blog post announcing the release. Application developer and end-user instructions for configuring Tectonic can be found within the Tectonic documentation, and examples of designing and running applications on Kubernetes v1 can be found within the Kubernetes GitHub repository.
