VMware Releases New Support for ProductionGrade Containerized Applications

VMware has announced new capabilities of VMware vSphere Integrated Containers, which provides companies with a Docker compatible interface for running on existing vSphere infrastructure which can help simplify the delivery of containers and application services into production in virtual environments whether on-premises or in the public cloud. VMware vSphere provides an enterprise container infrastructure that helps users meet SLA and security requirements required to run containerized applications in production.

VMware has enhanced vSphere Integrated Containers with the introductions of two new open source software projects, Admiral and Harbor, which provide registry and management functionality to support production-grade containerized applications. VMware vSphere Integrated Containers is now comprised of three main components, all of which are available as open source on GitHub.

The vSphere Integrated Containers Engine is a container runtime for vSphere, allowing developers familiar with Docker to develop in containers and deploy them alongside traditional VM-based workloads on vSphere clusters. These workloads can be managed through the vSphere UI in a way familiar to existing vSphere admins.

Harbor offers an enterprise-class registry server that stores and distributes container images. Harbor extends the open source project Docker Distribution by adding the functionalities usually required by an enterprise, such as security, identity and management.

Admiral is a container management portal which provides a UI for developers and app teams to provision and manage containers, including retrieving stats and information about container instances. Cloud administrators will be able to manage container hosts and apply governance to its usage, including capacity quotas and approval workflows. When integrated with vRealize Automation, more advanced capabilities become available, such as deployment blueprints and enterprise-grade Containers-as-a-Service. 

Making VMware vSphere Integrated Containers available as open source software downloadable from GitHub provides access to the code, visibility into updates, direct access to file issues, and the ability to contribute code back to help evolve the code. VMware is also providing an option of registering to participate in the VMware vSphere Integrated Containers beta program.