Red Kubes Adds Cloud Edition of Otomi Cloud-Native App Platform
Red Kubes today unfurled a cloud edition of its Otomi platform for building and deploying cloud-native applications based on open source software it integrated on behalf of customers.
In addition, the company has added a workload feature to its core Otomi platform that is now accessible via an updated console. That workload capability makes it simpler for developers to use code to configure and deploy applications that comply with security and compliance requirements they define.
Red Kubes CEO Rouven Besters says the overall goal is to provide an opinionated instance of an application development and deployment platform that makes it possible for developers to build applications rather than focusing on managing infrastructure. The OtomiCloud edition of the platform further simplifies that process by making a software-as-a-service (SaaS) edition of the platform available, he noted.
The workload feature makes it possible to store configuration modifications in the Git repository that is monitored by Red Kubes’ continuous delivery controller, which is also part of the Otomi platform. Developers can then define applications as code on an end-to-end basis.
There is, as always, a healthy debate among IT teams over the security merits of building a platform versus relying on an opinionated platform that might be more difficult to compromise. The Otomi platform provides access to specific open source components that Red Kubes curates, but organizations have the option of swapping out, for example, one continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform for another, noted Besters.
There’s significant effort involved in integrating all the components that are needed above Kubernetes to build and deploy cloud-native applications. Arguably, one of the reasons more cloud-native applications have not been deployed in production environments is because of the considerable amount of software engineering expertise required.
At the same time, however, IT teams are under more pressure than ever to build modern applications that drive digital business transformation initiatives. Red Kubes is essentially making case for achieving that goal faster using an integrated platform that eliminates the need for IT teams to devote resources to integrating components—an activity that offers them no real differentiated value, says Besters.
It can take as long as 12 months for IT teams to integrate all the components required, compared to using a platform from Red Kubes that can be up and running in a matter of hours, he adds.
It’s not clear whether organizations will embrace opinionated platforms for building and deploying cloud-native applications, but more of them are facing a pivotal decision. Building a handful of cloud-native applications that run on a handful of Kubernetes clusters is not the same thing as operationalizing the ongoing management of infrastructure to run multiple applications at scale. For many organizations, their best bet will be standardizing on a curated platform and taking advantage of a framework that automates most of the complex process for building and deploying cloud-native applications.
