Spectro Cloud released an open source CNCF Cluster API contribution supporting Canonical’s MaaS interface. The new contribution to the open source Kubernetes ecosystem addresses the need for organisations to easily deploy, run and manage Kubernetes clusters directly on top of bare metal servers, increasing performance and minimising cost and operational effort.
“Running Kubernetes directly on bare metal servers is the next big thing for the Kubernetes community, but it has been challenging and difficult to implement,” said Tenry Fu, CEO, Spectro Cloud.
“So far, we have seen two fairly compartmentalised efforts to evolve the use of bare metal with all of its benefits and to modernise Kubernetes management. The problem has been that each of these initiatives have been siloed thus far. With the Spectro Cloud Cluster API provider for MaaS, we have built the bridge between the two—this will enable the whole market to expand.”
This latest open source contribution from Spectro Cloud bridges two paradigm shifts for Kubernetes: Cluster API, which enables lifecycle management in a declarative manner for Kubernetes environments, and bare metal performance. It allows any team to use CNCF’s Cluster API to provision Kubernetes clusters on bare metal servers in any data center and manage them just like any other Kubernetes deployment target, without the extra hassle and risks, or additional technical skill sets.
Spectro Cloud open source project available on GitHub
The open source software, under Apache license and available for anyone to download, can be used by IT and development teams that are interested in managing Kubernetes environments at scale and have or are interested in extending to bare metal servers.
Organisations moving to production Kubernetes with multiple projects can benefit from Spectro Cloud’s Cluster API provider for MaaS through simplified management (no need for complex scripting, time wasted in configurations or a virtualisation skill set in-house), improved performance (eliminates the 7-10% CPU / memory hit added by hypervisors, also allows directly accessing GPUs and high-IOPS storage) and lowered costs (ability to run Kubernetes directly on bare metal bypasses the need for hypervisor and virtualisation licensing).
“Kubernetes can be challenging, let alone deploying directly on bare metal servers,” adds Saad Malik, CTO, Spectro Cloud. “The challenge with bare metal Kubernetes was always in treating those environments as one-offs that required specialised management, customisations and additional oversight. What we have built is essentially a way for any team to deploy and manage bare metal Kubernetes just like any other cluster. This open-source contribution, along with the Spectro Cloud platform, further demonstrates our work in bringing life to the CNCF Cluster API project.”
