Database company DataStax Inc. today announced the release of code for an Apache Cassandra Kubernetes operator it has developed, with a goal to help enterprises scale out their cloud-native databases.

The company said the Cassandra Kubernetes operator is being made available for the whole of the Cassandra community to use. Apache Cassandra is an open-source distributed database system designed for storing and managing large amounts of data across commodity servers.

Kubernetes meanwhile, is an open-source platform that’s used to manage software containers, which are modern applications that can run on any kind of infrastructure without being rewritten. DataStax notes that enterprises are increasingly using Kubernetes to deploy and build apps and services, and says that there’s a need to ensure the Cassandra database it develops works well with the Kubernetes ecosystem.

Operators are software extensions to Kubernetes that make use of custom resources to manage applications and their components. They function by capturing the knowledge of a human operator. Engineers who use Kubernetes have a unique perspective on how apps and services should behave and how to react when problems arise. Those same engineers like to automate repeatable tasks, and that’s where operators come in handy.

The Cassandra Kubernetes operator has been built from the ground up to work with the Cassandra ecosystem, DataStax said. The company is currently working with partners including Netflix Inc., Sky Group Ltd. and other Cassandra users to improve and advance the operator, it said.

“We hope together this operator will be the operator of choice for the wider Cassandra community,” said Mansoor Fazil, head of global video platforms at Sky.

The benefits of using the Cassandra Kubernetes operator include zero downtime and no more vendor lock-in, DataStax said. In addition, it gives users truly global scale, putting their data wherever it’s needed.

“Wherever Kubernetes goes, Cassandra needs to follow,” Sam Ramji, chief strategy officer at DataStax, told SiliconANGLE. “It’s our goal to release code that makes Cassandra easier to use to the open-source community early and often.”

Image: DataStax