VMware Cloud-Native Applications is new model of application distribution across nodes in clustered environment. Today VMware is announcing Cloud-Native applications based on several projects based on open source building blocks for containerized applications.
Projects which are Open source and which will in the future allows easier deployment, management and securing of infrastructures which are becoming more and more dynamic and elastic. Today those are projects only, but tomorrow, those projects will become free applications integrated with VMware vSphere.
Today, there are quite a few challenges, but one of the most important is security where there are complex networks of micro-services and the services are complex distributed systems with many points of attack.
3 Ways to secure:
- Scalable identity infrastructure
- Network isolation
- Trusted compute routine
Project Lightwave
Brings identity management system which is highly scalable and which can assure the identity, authentication and authorization server.
The goal is to integrate it with Docker, Kubernetes and other technologies…
Quote from the press release:
Project Lightwave will be the industry’s first container identity and access management technology that extends enterprise-ready security capabilities to cloud-native applications. The distributed nature of these applications, which can feature complex networks of microservices and hundreds or thousands instances of applications, will require enterprises to maintain the identity and access of all interrelated components and users. Project Lightwave will add a new layer of container security beyond container isolation by enabling companies to enforce access control and identity management capabilities across the entire infrastructure and application stack, including all stages of the application development lifecycle.
OVN – building dynamic networking for cloud ecosystem. With application dynamically created and spinned up and down, then there is a need for creating a dynamic networking. That's why Open virtualization network (dynamic networking). Similar like NSX without the advanced features. And Open Source.
The industry is very Linux focused where Linux is used as a base building block in a datacenter. It's a part of the infrastructure. The way to include Linux in the hypervisor, then there will be a complete solution for enterprise with included secure Linux system. That's why another project was born – Project Photon.
Project Photon – Opensource Linux distribution which will be part of the offering with VMware vSphere
The distro is used already by Google and other source. It runs the same as other VMs, but it will be used as part of vSphere Install and bundled with Para-virtualized container runtime. VMware will supply patches, support and security updates. Also Open Source. Included with vSphere license.
Quote:
Project Photon, a natural complement to Project Lightwave, is a lightweight Linux operating system for containerized applications. Optimized for VMware vSphere® and VMware vCloud® Air™ environments, Project Photon will enable enterprises to run both containers and virtual machines natively on a single platform, and deliver container isolation when containers run within virtual machines.
VMware will introduce Open source building blocks for secure containerized applications with project Lightwave, Project photon and together with Pivotal's Lattice which is container deployment and management on scalable cluster…
Video Project Lightwave:
Video Project Photon:
Quote from lattice.cf
Lattice aspires to make clustering containers easy. Lattice includes a cluster scheduler, https load balancing, log aggregation and health management. Lattice containers can be long running or temporary tasks which get dynamically scaled and balanced across a cluster. Lattice packages components from Cloud Foundry to provide a cloud native platform for individual developers and small teams.
Wrap up:
Those are the latest VMware projects which shall allow easier integration of new technologies used as standard building blocks in more and more dynamic virtualization infrastructures. Those technologies leverages Open source projects and technologies and shall be available later this year – included and distributed as a part of vSphere.
Project Lightwave
- ID and access management technology for containers
- Multi-tenant and scalable
- Shall be released later in 2015 on GitHub
Project Photon
- Hypervisor and Container-optimized Linux OS which will be bundled with vSphere
- Choice of container technology – Docker, rkt Garden (Pivotal)
- Shall be available on GitHub beginning 4/20 – (Update: it is now! )
Pivotal's Lattice
- Container deployment and management on scalable cluster
Project Photon and Project Lightwave will be made available via JFrog’s Bintray Distribution as a Service solution.
Register for today's webcast!
VMware will conduct a live webcast today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific to outline its vision for cloud-native applications, share details about these new open source projects, and showcase technology demonstrations from its ecosystem partners. Register here to view the event.
Source: VMware Blog
