Application modernization company AppOrbit Inc. is adding new networking capabilities to its platform, helping companies to better connect and secure legacy apps across a range of hybrid information technology infrastructures.

Founded in June 2015, AppOrbit aims to help facilitate digital transformation initiatives in enterprises by moving their legacy applications to any cloud infrastructure platform. It does this by separating applications from the underlying infrastructure and data stores in order to make them portable. Essentially it containerizes legacy apps, which means they can easily be cloned for new developments, production fixes and test data management.

Now, with version 2 of its platform launched today, AppOrbit is adding new networking functionality called AppSwitch that makes it easier to connect containerized and virtualized applications. With AppSwitch, these apps can be secured in what the company calls an “Application Capsule” that’s decoupled from the underlying network and physical infrastructure. This helps to simplify network management, making it easier to enable portable security policies, connectivity and automated load balancing across hybrid infrastructures.

Jérôme Petazzoni, a former Docker Inc. senior engineer and evangelist, explained that traditional network mechanisms in container deployments rely on namespaces. Meanwhile, virtual machines typically use a network interface card to interact with the network. In both cases, AppOrbit abstracts these clumsy mechanisms away, making it easier manage the app’s network requirements.

“A container connected with AppSwitch doesn’t even need to have an IP address, or even a full IP stack,” Petazzoni said. “That is why AppSwitch is exciting: It offers us a way to get the features that we need, without carrying the overhead of legacy concepts.”

Petazzoni likened AppSwitch to Docker, which abstracts away the application runtime environment so that developers don’t need to worry about infrastructure components. They can simply get on with building their apps, assured they’ll be able to run on any platform.

“With AppSwitch, you can connect together applications running in containers, VMs, or physical machines, and it is completely transparent,” Petazzoni said.

Image: AppOrbit