Self-proclaimed “open-source-as-a-service” company Platform9 Systems Inc. is doing its bit to lighten the load of application container developers.

The company has just announced the general availability of its Managed Kubernetes offering along with the introduction of a new, open-source, serverless framework built on the Kubernetes container orchestration tool that it claims is an alternative to Amazon Web Services’ Lambda.

Managed Kubernetes

Founded in 2013, Platform9 began its life as an OpenStack-as-a-service provider before moving into container services last summer when it launched its Managed Kubernetes service in beta. The company said today that its decision to provide services around containers is a logical next step due to the increased demand for microservices on OpenStack.

“While enterprises will be running virtualized workloads on OpenStack for years to come, there’s growing demand for platforms that offer a choice of virtualization, microservices or both,” Sirish Raghuram, chief executive officer at Platform9, said in a statement. “Microservices in particular require a more intuitive, managed approach that reduces time-to-value for Kubernetes projects and work on any choice of infrastructure.”

The company said its Managed Kubernetes solution is a Software-as-a-Service managed offering that can be deployed in public clouds or on-premises. It said the service is fully integrated and infrastructure-agnostic, designed to make consumption of Kubernetes easier by eliminating hurdles around configuration and management, especially in larger deployments.

Madhura Maskasky, cofounder and vice president of product, Platform9 Inc.

Platform9 opted to take a SaaS-based approach because it’s the best way to make the service accessible to a significantly larger portion of the market, Platform9 cofounder and Vice President of Product Madhura Maskasky said in an interview with SiliconANGLE.

“Developers can focus on using Kubernetes to deploy their containerized applications as microservices, without worrying about the upkeep of Kubernetes, saving them a lot of time,” Maskasky said. She added that this approach is fundamentally different from those of its competitors, which only offer a traditional shrink-wrap software-based deployment model.

Fission

Platform9’s second announcement today pertains to the launch of Fission, a new open-source, framework for serverless functions on Kubernetes. The framework is designed to enable application container developers to run code without needing to provision or manage servers first. Similar to Amazon Web Services’ Lambda service, it enables DevOps teams to leverage Kubernetes to write REST-based application backends, event-driven automation or custom application controllers with ease, the company said.

Maskasky said the company hopes that Fission will eventually become the de-facto open-source alternative to AWS’s Lambda, offering developers more choice and flexibility in their choice of infrastructure.

“The issue with AWS Lambda is it locks you into the AWS ecosystem, meaning you can only utilize integrations within the ecosystem as triggers for your Lambda functions,” she said. “Fission can run anywhere Kubernetes can run, which fundamentally enables choice. And because it’s open and extensible it enables a wider ecosystem adoption and integrations with popular tools developers are used to working with.”

Fission is available to download from GitHub.

Images courtesy of Platform9