Cloud operations specialist Mirantis Inc. on Thursday introduced Mirantis Flow, a new platform that it says will enable enterprises to build and operate hybrid clouds more efficiently.

Campbell, California-based Mirantis makes software products that help information technology teams run their organizations’ infrastructure. The company additionally provides tools for managing software container applications. 

“Until now, cloud-native was sold and marketed as piece parts for enterprises to assemble,” said Mirantis co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Adrian Ionel. “For the first time, Flow takes that software, knowledge and support expertise and packages it up for easy deployment.”

Mirantis Flow combines a set of software tools and professional services into a single subscription offering. The company says that the platform can help companies more than halve hardware costs in some cases. For IT teams, Mirantis is promising simplified infrastructure management. 

The first component of Mirantis Flow is a software product called Mirantis Container Cloud. It provides IT teams with a single pane of glass for managing hardware resources across on-premises data centers,  cloud environments and edge computing equipment.

On infrastructure managed by Mirantis Container Cloud, developers can deploy both virtualized applications and software container workloads. The container features are provided partly through another component of Mirantis Flow called the Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. It’s a Kubernetes distribution that, according to the company, automates many of the tasks involved in ensuring that applications run reliably. 

A collection of Kubernetes-specific tools in Mirantis Flow promise to ease operations in additional areas. There’s Lens Spaces, which enables administrators to monitor their Kubernetes clusters from a desktop application and write code to automate maintenance chores. For companies requiring broader monitoring features than what Lens Spaces offers, there’s StackLight, a tool that allows IT teams track the health of their container infrastructure and troubleshoot any issues they find.

If needed, firms using Mirantis Flow can deploy OpenStack alongside Kubernetes. OpenStack is an open-source infrastructure management platform that is used by some enterprises, such as carriers, to run important on-premises workloads.

Mirantis Flow’s software components are provided alongside professional services that help companies with running their hybrid clouds. The bundle is providing for a monthly subscription that starts at $15,000. The price includes licenses for 1,000 central processing unit cores and technical support, including assistance with moving existing applications to Mirantis Flow. 

“You get a completely managed service with guaranteed outcomes” Mirantis executives Shaun O’Meara and Adam Parco wrote in a blog post. “Combining Mirantis Container Cloud with 24x7x365 monitoring and operations support, Mirantis Flow provides a Data Center as a Service experience that enables your developers to focus on creating and using Kubernetes and OpenStack clusters rather than managing infrastructure.”

Often, companies use an array of software products from different suppliers to manage their on-premises data center hardware, cloud infrastructure and edge systems. The Mirantis Flow model of providing a single toolkit for centrally managing all of a company’s infrastructure assets can potentially make IT teams’ work easier. 

The platform also promises to simplify software procurement in certain respects. Instead of having to purchase each infrastructure management tool they use separately, IT teams that choose to adopt Mirantis Flow can purchase everything from Mirantis as a single subscription service.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. has also embraced the as-a-service model in a bid to simplify IT operations for customers. Through its GreenLake solutions portfolio, the company allows organizations to buy on-premises data center gear on a subscription basis and offers to remotely operate the hardware for them. This month, HPE disclosed that GreenLake has passed 1,000 customers, a sign that a growing number of enterprises are adopting as-a-service offerings as part of their hybrid cloud roadmaps. 

Image: Mirantis