One of the key attributes of cloud native systems is portability, which is possible only when the infrastructure is consistent across environments. Kubernetes is the lowest common denominator of infrastructure and also the foundation of the cloud native stack. We also learned in the previous article that Kubernetes is fast becoming the preferred control plane for scheduling and managing jobs in highly distributed environments.

While Kubernetes is an important element of the cloud native stack, developers and DevOps engineers need additional software to deploy, scale and manage modern applications. Platform vendors such as Red Hat and VMware offer end-to-end platforms based on Kubernetes. Public cloud vendors — including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure — offer Kubernetes-based managed services running on existing compute, storage, and network infrastructure.

Integrated container management platforms based on Kubernetes created a new category of application delivery model: Containers as a Service (CaaS). Similar to Platforms as a Service (PaaS), the container management platform can be deployed behind the firewall running in an enterprise data center, or consumed as a managed cloud service offering.

With CaaS as the common fabric across the data center and the public cloud, organizations can build hybrid applications that securely connect internal assets to the public cloud. CaaS is fast becoming an enabler of the hybrid cloud and multicloud deployments. Developers and operators can easily move applications across disparate environments.

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