Virtualization software giant VMware Inc. is stepping up its involvement in the software container movement, announcing today the availability in beta of its new VMware Kubernetes Engine.

VMware is touting the platform as an enterprise-grade Kubernetes-as-a-service offering that helps companies to easily manage, secure and cut costs with their Kubernetes workloads.

Kubernetes is a popular orchestration tool used to deploy and manage software containers, which are used by developers to build applications that can run on any platform. Kubernetes can also help make it easier to move those applications among multiple public clouds and on-premises environments. VMware Kubernetes Engine provides companies with an alternative to running the software themselves, which requires a specialist skill set that few organizations possess.

VMware is entering a tough playing field, however, with the likes of Google LLC with its Google Kubernetes Engine, and Microsoft Corp. with its Azure Container Service among the rivals it has to contend with. Additional competitors include Cisco Systems Inc., which recently launched its own container platform in partnership with Google, as well as Red Hat Inc. and IBM Corp., which only underlines how important a role these companies believe Kubernetes will play going forward.

Still, although VMware might be later to the game than its rivals, the company believes its platform differentiates enough to give it a fighting chance. In a blog post, Bill Shelton, VMware’s vice president of cloud native applications, explained that VMware’s Kubernetes platform stands out for its ability to run on multiple cloud platforms, something he said none of its rivals can do at present. VMware Kubernetes Engine is initially being made available on Amazon Web Services, but will soon be launched on Microsoft Azure, where it’s currently in demo mode.

A second differentiator for VMware Kubernetes Engine is its support for managing multiple clusters at the same time thanks to a feature called “smart clustering,” which contrasts with rival platforms that can only run individual clusters separately. In addition, VMware Kubernetes Engine complements Pivotal Software Inc.’s Pivotal Container Service, which is a platform launched earlier this year for creating software containers that can be deployed in both public and private cloud environments.

Given the overwhelming popularity of Kubernetes, VMware’s entry into the market is no surprise, said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc.

“VMware will have to show the value add it can provide, but with Smart Clustering and better load balancing and system administration, it’s going in the right direction,” Mueller said. “Only the future will tell if it will be enough to compel corporate executives to move their next-generation applications to this infrastructure, instead of running Kubernetes natively on their respective platforms.”

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