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New Kubernetes Certification Program Announced
The open source container management tech gets big boost.
Today, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) announced a big step to ensure that a Kubernetes distribution meets a set of standards, with the release of Kubernetes Software Conformance Certification program.
As part of the new program, vendors run a test suite to demonstrate their product conforms to the test; CNCF certifies the test. Once CNCF certifies the implementation, the vendor is permitted to use the new Certified Kubernetes logo and can use the Kubernetes name in combination with their product name.
Dan Kohn, executive director of the CNCF, stated in the announcement that "The interoperability that this program ensures is essential to Kubernetes meeting its promise of offering a single open source software stack supported by many vendors that can deploy on any public, private or hybrid cloud."
This is an important development, since certification is a guarantee that the Kubernetes API functions on that platform conforms to the standard. This provides flexibility on deployment of containers; it will also make it easier to move workloads between different platforms.
Any vendor can run the conformance test suite and submit the test results to CNCF. Around three dozen products have already passed the certification process, including:
- IBM Cloud Container Service and IBM Cloud Private
- Docker Enterprise Edition
- Cisco Container Platform
- VMware's Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
- Google Kubernetes Engine
- Microsoft Azure ACS-Engine
- Oracle Terraform Kubernetes Installer
- Rancher Kubernetes
- Weaveworks
A full list of certified products can be found here.
About the Author
Tom Fenton has a wealth of hands-on IT experience gained over the past 30 years in a variety of technologies, with the past 20 years focusing on virtualization and storage. He currently works as a Technical Marketing Manager for ControlUp. He previously worked at VMware in Staff and Senior level positions. He has also worked as a Senior Validation Engineer with The Taneja Group, where he headed the Validation Service Lab and was instrumental in starting up its vSphere Virtual Volumes practice. He's on X @vDoppler.