UPDATED 23:20 EDT / JUNE 29 2017

CLOUD

New Kubernetes release extends its reach versus Docker

Docker might be the most popular software container technology around, but the Kubernetes project is making just as many waves thanks to its ability to group containers that make up applications into logical units for easier management and discovery.

Developers of the container orchestration software announced the release on Thursday of Kubernetes 1.7, a new version that comes with improvements centered around extensibility, security and providing other ways for deploying, managing and scaling container-based apps.

The new version of Kubernetes was announced via blog posts from two of the projects’ main backers, CoreOS Inc. and Red Hat Inc. The companies explained that the new features are considered Alpha in this release, which means they’re not turned on by default, but will be in later releases once they’re considered “stable.”

The main focus on Kubernetes 1.7 is extensibility, enabling the software to expand its scope and functionality without “bloating” the project, said Joe Brockmeier, Red Hat’s senior evangelist for Linux containers. The main new feature supporting extensibility is something called Custom Resource Definitions, which have been created to extend Kubernete’s application programming interface so it can provide features not included in the core Kubernetes that look like first-class application programming interfaces to users. CoreOS engineer Eric Chiang provides an in-depth look at the new feature, currently in beta, in this blog post.

A second new extensibility feature is called Extensible External Admission Control, which is currently in alpha and adds extensible policy and security checks to Kubernetes. Developers have also introduced something called API aggregation, which works with Custom Resource Definitions to boost extensibility by enabling user-provided API servers to work with Kubernetes’ API.

The other big focus in this release is on security. A new alpha feature is the ability to encrypt data stored in the etcd key-value store. There’s also a new authorization mode and admission plugin that limits each node’s access to specific APIs so as to reduce access to secrets and other information to their own pod, so they can’t access the cluster’s pods globally, Brockmeier wrote.

Other new features include local persistent storage, DaemonSet Updates and StatefulSet Upgrades, all of which should help make Kubernetes’ processes easier to automate. More information on these is available in Red Hat’s blog post.

“Overall, Kubernetes 1.7 represents another strong release from the Kubernetes community,” wrote Brockmeier. “It delivers a number of features that will help keep Kubernetes at the forefront of deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications.”

Image: Kubernetes Project

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