Intel and CoreOS Collaborate to Democratize Cloud Computing

A powerful trend sweeping through today’s data centers can be summed up in a single word: Containers. Container-based virtualization allows you to package applications and the required software libraries to create units of computing that are scalable and portable. Today, Nick Weaver shared Intel’s vision for containers and the mainstream democratization of sophisticated cloud computing at CoreOS Fest in San Francisco. If the level of the engagement at the conference is any indication, I expect the industry to join us on the path toward broad scale deployments of advanced, easy to consume, hyperscale technologies.

The container concept is a central feature of hyperscale cloud technology. Hyperscale technologies promise to make software developers more productive, data center infrastructure more efficient, and IT resources easier to deploy and consume. It is not hyperbole to say that broad proliferation of hyperscale cloud technology could have an impact on data centers that is similar to the impact that virtualization delivered years ago.

While it was once mainly in the domain of highly advanced data centers, the orchestrated container concept is now emerging as a viable open-source solution for mainstream data centers that want to operate with greater efficiency, flexibility, and performance.  It will enable organizations to deploy highly efficient cloud technology that is on par with that used by the most sophisticated cloud service providers.

At Intel, we fully support the addition of container technologies to the mainstream data center, and are actively participating in the ecosystem to bring containers to data centers of all levels of sophistication. With this goal in mind, Intel is collaborating with CoreOS and the Kubernetes community to advance the company’s Tectonic stack.

Tectonic is a commercial distribution of the combined CoreOS portfolio and Kubernetes. Kubernetes is a Google-led open source project for application scheduling. This combination makes Tectonic a unique offering that provides container software and scheduling in an integrated package. The Tectonic suite delivers a complete solution for businesses transitioning to a distributed, container-based software infrastructure for both private, public, and hybrid cloud.

As part of this newly announced collaboration, we’re working with CoreOS and associated communities to make Tectonic more scalable. To help Tectonic reach customers as quickly as possible, we are enabling the development of easy to order and consume appliances. We expect that this work will lead to ready-to-ship, hyperscale cloud systems that coincide with the future GA release of the Tectonic suite. We were excited to have two ecosystem partners, Supermicro and Redapt, signal their intent to work with CoreOS and Intel to bring rapid time to market for Tectonic. We were also pleased to collaborate with Supermicro to demonstrate this combination running on their hardware at CoreOS Fest today.

I caught up with CoreOS CEO Alex Polvi at the conference, and here’s what he had to say about this early demonstration of Tectonic in action: "Today Intel gave us a glimpse of the future. This is the beginning of a deep partnership to enable businesses to take advantage of containers, distributed systems, and the next generation of infrastructure."

This collaborative effort builds on Google’s substantial investments in CoreOS and Kubernetes. In April, CoreOS announced that Google Ventures had invested $12 million in CoreOS and its efforts to bring Kubernetes to the enterprise.

Using features of the Intel platform, the Intel SDI-X team has innovated with CoreOS to overcome cluster scalability limits, while raising the bar on performance.

At Intel, we are excited to be a part of the broad ecosystem that is working to bring containers to the masses. This is a key component of our desire to see private and hybrid cloud computing grow significantly over next few years.

For more information on the innovation Nick and his team is delivering, take a look at http://nickapedia.com/.