IBM unveils trio of open source Kubernetes projects, and not a Red Hat-trick in sight

IBM unveils trio of open source Kubernetes projects, and not a Red Hat-trick in sight
IBM image via shutterstock

IBM has unwrapped a trio of Kubernetes-focused open source projects today, building on the Razee project it launched back in May.

The newly enlarged vendor used OSCON 2019 to debut Kabanero, Appsody, and Codewind, all of which it said would “make it faster and easier for you to develop and deploy applications for Kubernetes”.

The overarching project is Kabanero, but it’s helpful to consider Appsody and Codewind first.

Appsody is pitched as allowing developers to quickly create microservices to their organisation’s standards and requirements, using pre-configured stacks and templates for “popular open source runtimes and frameworks, providing a foundation to build applications for Kubernetes and Knative deployments.” The stacks and templates can be customized as required, and of course be used in Kabanero. Initial supported application stacks are Java MicroProfile, Java Spring, Node.js, Node.js Express and Swift.

The third element, Codewind, is a project to provide extensions to IDEs, starting with VS Code, Eclipse and Eclipse Che, to allow them to be used to build containerised applications. As IBM puts it, “Codewind enables you to develop in containers without knowing you are developing in containers”. Kabanero and Appsody will use Codewind.

As for Kabanero, this aims to bring together projects like Knative, Istio and Tekton, along with Codewind, Appsody, and Razzee, to allow users to “architect, build, deploy, and manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes-based applications.” The project includes “pre-built deployments to Kubernetes and Knative (using Operators and Helm charts)…so, developers can spend more time developing scalable applications and less time understanding infrastructure.”

The trio’s debut comes a couple of months after IBM launched Razee, an open source tool for managing Kubernetes workloads across multiple clusters, and which also slots in under the Kabanero umbrella.

More significantly, perhaps, they are launched barely a week after IBM finally swallowed Red Hat – and its positions in a raft of open source projects.