Photon Platform

2016: Kubernetes

On October 19, 2016 the VMware company provided the built-in support of Kubernetes in the Photon Platform platform.

It will help teams of IT operation to provide to developers services of Kubernetes-as-service. VMware Photon Platform includes network services and custodial services on the basis of VMware NSX and VMware Virtual SAN respectively now. With implementation of these services Photon Platform represents a corporate native cloud infrastructure platform of a full stroke for start of modern containerized applications in the industrial environment with support of technologies of VMware.

Interaction with the containers Kubernetes, (2016)

For reduction of an application development cycle programmers implement native cloud methodologies, architecture and technologies. VMware Photon Platform provides access to the services necessary for the organization and start of modern applications, including Kubernetes-as-service which can be started in DPCs of clients.

The complex Photon platform automates providing resources for IT infrastructure and helps the enterprises to focus on development.

The VMware Photon Platform platform takes a huge step forward, giving to IT specialists of power, necessary for support, protection and management of development teams of modern services. Also the platform gives opportunities to automation of infrastructure which are necessary for the leading corporations today. Thanks to an industry-leading hypervisor, the solution for network virtualization and hyper convergent storages the VMware Photon Platform platform provides to customers the high speed of work and adaptivity of business which will allow them to bring to the market the innovative software solutions quicker. Paul Fazzone, vice president and CEO of business division of native cloud applicaions of VMware

Kubernetes as a Service

The VMware Photon Platform platform will help teams of operation to provide Kubernetes in the form of service to developers in the multi-user mode with isolation of workloads, their protection. Clusters of Kubernetes which can vary in sizes from one to one hundred nodes are delivered within several minutes, allowing developers to scale the clusters as required without emergence of idle times.

The VMware Photon Platform platform includes functions on ensuring high availability — automatic recovery after failures, reducing time of idle times in use of services of Kubernetes. VMware provides full support of the Photon platform, including distribution of Kubernetes on a commercial basis.

Virtual Networks Powered by VMware NSX

The Photon platform includes the network services based on VMware NSX technology now. The platform will provide switching and routing.

Hyper convergent storage on the basis of VMware Virtual SAN

The Photon platform will include the block storage system using VMware Virtual SAN services. Service represents a flexible and reliable solution of storage for containerized and native cloud applicaions. Service will provide the elastic storage scaled both vertically and is horizontal for rapid implementation of applications.

2015

Photon Platform

The chief technical specialist of VMware on native cloud applicaions Jared Rosoff in October, 2015 told TAdviser about the project, key for the company, on software development (software) open source - the Photon Platform platform intended for work with container virtualization and native cloud applicaions. The last are meant as the applications which are initially created for work in a cloud environment as opposed to migration of applications in a cloud.

The technology preview of Photon Platform appeared in August, 2015, and the beta of the platform, according to Jared Rozoff, is expected at the end of 2015.

Such components as Photon Machine hypervisor combined with the Photon OS operating system, and Photon Controller are a part of Photon Platform.

Photon Machine which in the company is called "mikrovizor" is the invested version of a hypervisor of VMware of ESX. It serves for a hosting of the virtual machines working under control of Photon OS. In turn, Photon OS is the easy operating system based on Linux kernel developed especially for container applications. At this Photon OS it is optimized for virtual environments of VMware vSphere and VMware vCloud Air that allows to start on a single platform both containers, and virtual machines, providing isolation of containers at start of virtual machines. As of fall of 2015 of Photon OS it is already available.

The beta of Photon Platform should appear at the end of 2015

Photon Controller represents the tool working based on API interfaces and allowing developers to create a set of containers and to manage them. One more product of VMware with the open code –LightWave – the identification server intended for access control to containers, virtual machines and applications is involved in it. It is possible to tell that LightWave is one more layer of security over mechanisms of isolation of containers.

Jared Rozoff notes that open source products of VMware can be integrated with solutions of other vendors. For example, it is possible to use Photon Controller together with a hypervisor of KVM.

The open source software of VMware extends according to the license GPL (GNU Public License) or Apache License. On GPL, in particular, Photon OS as according to the same license Linux extends extends. In turn, Photon Controller which release is expected at the end of October beginning of November, most likely, will extend according to the license Apache, Jared Rozoff says. According to the same license LightWave extends. Rozoff noted what with software extended according to the license Apache can be made more in terms of development of own products: on its basis it is possible to create own proprietary solutions without need to open the code of the made changes.

Jared Rozoff told TAdviser that in VMware there is a strategy of building of the relations with software developers, and solutions with the open code – a key component of this strategy.

"VMware wants that its products were more significant for developers, and we should provide them tools using which to conduct development quicker and more simply, to help them to build new types of systems which they could not build earlier", - he says.

The chief technical specialist according to native cloud applicaions of VMware considers that providing solutions with the open code to developers as an option especially relevant in connection with the changed paradigm of creation of own software in the companies. He explained that earlier sales managers came to the Chief information officer of the customer and sold the database, the operating system and other products with which corporate developers had to work. Now the situation changed, and the choice of technologies is made even more often by developers, often – irrespective of IT service, Rozoff says.

"Freedom is what often concerns developers. They are, as a rule, limited in the budget and at the same time they need to begin the project as soon as possible. Therefore developers often select the free free software. With its help it is possible to check with the minimum finance costs how the developed solution works", - Jared Rozoff says.

Financial freedom when using Open Source is one of factors for benefit of its choice. One more important factor Jared Rozoff calls freedom of integration and making changes in the solutions: if something in a system it works not as it is necessary, in a case with Open Source it is possible most to look and most to correct something in the code. In a case with proprietary products there is a dependence on vendor.

It should be noted that in addition to Photon Platform as a part of EMC where VMware enters, there is one more company which is engaged in software development with the open code -Pivotal. In this case it is about the PaaS-platform with the open code within the Cloud Foundry project. The platform uses technology of containers and is conceived as the unified platform for start of any applications without binding to a specific cloud or a hypervisor. The Cloud Foundry platform allows to virtualize in a container the operating system and all necessary resources for operation of application.

Initially the project on development of Cloud Foundry was kept by division in VMware. It opened the code of this platform in 2011, and the division was later is displaid in separate company into which practices of EMC on big data technologies also entered.