Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Friday, April 19, 2024

Kubernetes Developer Mesosphere Rebrands as D2iQ 

Kubernetes, the de facto standard cluster orchestrator, continues to transform an expanding ecosystem of enterprise cloud vendors to the point where some are changing their identity to reflect the steady shift to cloud native and open source tools aimed at scaling distributed applications.

Case in point is D2iQ, the new handle for Mesosphere, the datacenter operating system (DC/OS) specialist and an early provider of Kubernetes and other services designed to boost the scaling of application containers.

As part of its re-branding, D2iQ rollout three new “spheres” this week based on its early Kubernetes development. The first, dubbed KSphere, leverages the company’s early experience with Kubernetes to boost application orchestration capabilities. The cloud-native framework includes an “enterprise-wide Kubernetes experience” called Konvoy,” defined as a packaged set of integrated services for Kubernetes.

Konvoy is described as “a core Kubernetes distribution” that incorporates monitoring, logging, ingress control and disaster recovery to provision Kubernetes clusters and supporting services via a single installer. D2iQ claimed its framework can help deploy production-ready clusters in hours rather than days.

Konvoy is generally available now.

D2iQ also stressed the new Kubernetes service has been certified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the industry group promoting Kubernetes and other emerging open-source tools.

A data analytics tool called Datasphere is designed to build and deploy data application platforms using services such as Apache Cassandra, Kafka and Spark. The rebranded company also said it expects to announce other stateful data services, including Jupyter.

The Mesosphere brand name will be retained in the form of a foundational technology built on DC/OS to scale enterprise application delivery.

D2iQ also announced Monday (Aug. 5) it would release the latest version of its flagship DC/OS in the fall.

Meanwhile, an early version of another Kubernetes-based tool called Kommander is also available now to Konvoy users. Kommander is designed to help govern Kubernetes clusters deployed across company IT infrastructure by providing a single view for tracking lifecycle and configuration management for multi-cluster environments.

The spate of new products and the rebranding underscores the steady shift of application containers and other micro-services, a transition accelerated by broad adoption of cluster orchestration tools.

A user survey released last year ranked the former Mesosphere’s Marathon and DC/OS tools as handling the most clusters of at least 50 application containers. Kubernetes was not far behind.

Among D2iQ’s backers is Sun Microsystems Co-Founder Vinod Khosla, the billionaire investor and managing partner of Khosla Ventures. The former Mesosphere got its start as an early adopter of the Apache Mesos project for managing computer clusters.

About the author: George Leopold

George Leopold has written about science and technology for more than 30 years, focusing on electronics and aerospace technology. He previously served as executive editor of Electronic Engineering Times. Leopold is the author of "Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom" (Purdue University Press, 2016).

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