Companies are scrounging for some thread to tie their many cloud services together. One option is Kubernetes, the open-source orchestration platform for containers (a virtualized method for running distributes applications). Another is the use of application program interfaces. In tandem at the networking level, they’re a walloping punch in the face of multicloud complexity. 

“You look at a retailer — they have users using mobile apps, they have remote stores, they have data centers, they have public cloud, and then they’re using containers,” said Hussein Khazaal (pictured), vice president of marketing and partnerships at Nuage Networks. “How do you stitch all that together?” 

“The three letters are A-P-I,” he said. APIs get disparate elements in multicloud talking to each other. This makes integration much easier across environments. Applying APIs and Kubernetes to the network layer is one of the best possible ways to make a multicloud hodgepodge gel, he added.

Khazaal spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event in Seattle, Washington. They discussed the delicate concoction necessary to make multicloud gel. (* Disclosure below.)

Kubernetes-network marriage has multicloud neighbors talking

Nuage’s Virtualized Network Services platform also leverages Cisco Systems Inc.’s Container Networking Infrastructure plug-in. Users stitch multicloud environments together with an API-driven network model, so they have a mixed-workload environment with network policy and security built into the platform.

This brings the visibility and portability that developers love in Kubernetes to IT and infrastructure folks, according to Khazaal. “You have people running Kubernetes on bare metal,” he said. “You can run Kubernetes anywhere. That’s how we provide networking.”

That “anywhere” includes everywhere along the path from core to edge.

“Being able, as a networking solution, to steer that traffic securely using encryption or whatever have you in terms of visibility, provides those enterprises with a secure, sound platform to really do their business,” Khazaal concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event. (* Disclosure: Nuage Networks sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Nuage nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE