Dell Technologies Inc. is hoping to boost standardization around software containers with the release of its latest orchestration platform REX-Ray v0.10, which incorporates a prerelease of the Container Storage Interface 0.1 specification.

REX-Ray is an open-source container orchestration platform that was built by {code}, Dell’s open-source organization, which contributes to a number of major open-source software projects. Meanwhile, CSI is a proposal for a universal storage interface, basically an application programming interface that’s designed to enable interoperability between different container orchestrators and container storage platforms. CIS has been built from the ground up, incorporating lessons learned from the development of other popular container orchestrators and software, such as Kubernetes, Docker and Cloud Foundry.

CSI is designed to enable container orchestrators like REX-Ray, Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and others to leverage any kind of storage platform implementing it, including both cloud and on-premises environments. The idea is to ensure application portability across various types of infrastructure, giving users more choice in the way they build and manage their containerized apps, Dell said. As such, Dell looks like it’s hoping to gain a headstart on its rivals by ensuring REX-Ray is the first such platform to implement CSI.

The integration with CSI might just be enough to entice some users to give REX-Ray a whirl, in place of more popular orchestration tools like Kubernetes. With the integration, Dell has enabled a few interesting features not present in other orchestration platforms, including three native plugins that it says can function as a blueprint for those looking to create their own CSI drivers.

These include an NFS plugin that enables compatibility with storage platforms that don’t support CSI. They also include a block devices plugin that provides enhanced functionality for on-premises applications that can optimally make use of logical or physical devices local to a host. Finally, there’s a Virtual File System plugin that allows the CSI specification to be verified without a separate storage provider.

“We’re in a catch-22 with containers, where adoption needs to increase to drive innovation, and innovation needs to continue to drive adoption,” said Josh Bernstein, vice president of technology at Dell Technologies. “Industry standards are critical to ensuring that containers are evolving, and container orchestrators are able to easily meet storage demands through a single protocol.”

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