Pivotal Software has added support for the Spinnaker continuous delivery platform to its platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environment for the open source Cloud Foundry PaaS.
Richard Seroter, vice president of product marketing at Pivotal, said version 2.6 of Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) extends the reach of the Spinnaker CD platform developed by Netflix to its PaaS environment and Enterprise PKS, an instance of Kubernetes curated by Pivotal and its sister company, VMware.
At the same time, the latest version of PAS adds support for a beta instance of custom sidecar processes, which enable developers to embed additional functions running in an isolated container directly within their applications. That capability makes it possible to deploy, for example, a service mesh within the application, said Seroter.
Finally, Pivotal plans to add multicenter replication capabilities for MySQL databases and a permissions model to Concourse for PCF, a continuous integration tool for building application pipelines with a Pivotal CF environment. That latter capability provides a mechanism through which DevOps teams can automate application updates, including patches, end to end, Seroter noted. As more patches are released to address the growing number of critical flaws involving microprocessors that make use of hyperthreading, the ability to automate their deployment is now more critical than ever, he said.
Pivotal is seeing the deployment of both traditional 12-factor applications and more modern containerized applications on its PaaS environment. At the same time, the Cloud Foundry Foundation, which oversees the development of the Cloud Foundry PaaS, has, via Project Eirini, made it possible to deploy containers that rely on Kubernetes rather than the Diego orchestration platform developed for Cloud Foundry. However, Eirini is still an alpha project and Pivotal has not yet fully committed to a specific level of support for Kubernetes with its overall PaaS strategy.
In the meantime, Seroter said PCF continues to gain momentum in organizations looking to build and deploy software much like a technology company. As more organizations realize how dependent they are on software to drive revenue, they want to rely on a platform that makes it easier for them to manage software development and deployment platforms at scale, he noted.
As part of that effort, Pivotal Software is aggressively incorporating tools that will enable organizations using its PaaS to implement best DevOps process. Many have adopted various modern development platforms in isolation but continue to rely on the Cloud Foundry PaaS to automate the building and deployment of mission-critical applications. Now, two classes of development platforms are merging into a single entity that makes it easier to embrace agile development methodologies using a lightweight development platform.
Whatever the outcome, PaaS environments are not going away anytime soon. However, what organizations perceive as the role a PaaS environment plays in any enterprise soon might expand considerably as more container technologies are infused into the platform.
