Continuous software delivery startup Harness Inc. said today it’s integrating its platform with Amazon Web Services Inc.’s Elastic Container Service in a move that will enable users to run applications in Docker containers with less scripting and redundancy.

Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service that rivals the better known open-source Kubernetes service. They’re both used to manage software containers that host the components of modern apps distributed across many computer servers.

Harness sells a “continuous delivery-as-a-service” platform that uses machine learning algorithms to monitor new software updates for any problems. The service allows users to understand what’s happening with an application’s baseline environment and initiate automatic rollbacks to a previous version if any irregular activity is detected.

Harness said that by integrating its service with Amazon ECS, it enables numerous features that were previously exclusive to Kubernetes users.

That’s important, Harness says, because its 2020 State of Continuous Delivery Insights Report from earlier this year found that 31% of companies use Amazon ECS exclusively for container orchestration, while 67% use Kubernetes.

“Naturally, a vast majority of CI/CD vendors have built their applications for organizations using Kubernetes, but in doing so, they have alienated more than a quarter of the market,” Harness says, referring the providers of continuous integration and continuous deployment of applications.

So today’s integration is all about filling that gap, Harness said. By combining its platform with Amazon ECS, users will be able to automate app deployments without needing to manage scripts and handle various failure conditions during deployment.

Moreover, there will be less redundancy, Harness said. Finally, Amazon ECS users will be able to take advantage of several “out-of-the-box deployment strategies” that Harness provides, such as Canary, Blue-Green and Basic Deployments, as well as its failure strategy and automated rollback capabilities.

“With their single minded focus on Kubernetes, most DevOps SaaS solutions have forgotten Amazon ECS customers,” said Harness co-founder and Chief Executive Jyoti Bansal (pictured). “We understand that many of our customers are happy with their ECS environments and don’t plan to switch, which is why we offer the same level of functionality for ECS and Kubernetes.”

Photo: Harness