The Kubernetes developer community is capping off a successful year with the release of Kubernetes 1.9, adding important new features that should help to further encourage enterprise adoption.

Kubernetes is the most popular container orchestrator management software. It’s used to simplify the deployment and management of software containers, which are a popular tool among developers that allows them to run their applications across multiple computing environments without making any changes to the underlying code.

With the new release, the fourth this year, the community said it’s moving the Apps Workloads application programming interface into general availability. The Apps Workloads API is an important tool for developers, grouping together tools including DaemonSet, Deployment, ReplicaSet and StatefulSet, which are used to power stateful workloads in Kubernetes. According to Kubernetes’ developers, the general availability of the API is a big milestone as it removes any doubts about the functional stability of Kubernetes for mission-critical workloads.

Kubernetes 1.9 also includes Windows Support for the first time. This means it can now support workloads running on Windows as well as Linux operating systems. The feature is currently available in beta, so early adopters can begin evaluating it for wider usage.

There’s also big news on the storage front with the arrival of something called the Container Storage Interface. The CSI is currently available in Alpha, which means it’s not ready for production workloads and must be explicitly enabled by operators. It’s designed to make it easier for users to add volume plugins for new storage systems to Kubernetes. The idea is to make data more portable across Kubernetes workloads by creating a single interface for provisioning, attaching and mounting different storage volumes for Kubernetes to use.

The evolution of the CSI is probably the most important new component of Kubernetes to watch, said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president at Constellation Research Inc. He pointed out that Kubernetes has come on in leaps and bounds over the past couple of years, setting an extremely high bar for a standard that’s winning fast, emerging from “zero to clear leader in under two years.”

Kubernetes has already solved the challenge of code portability, he added, and the next step is making it easier to move data to and from enterprise applications. “Getting data portability solved is the next challenge for Kubernetes and its ecosystem,” Mueller said.

Kubernetes 1.9 will be officially released this week, and can be downloaded from the official Kubernetes GitHub page.

Image: Kubernetes