Mirantis unveils Rockoon to simplify OpenStack on Kubernetes

Mirantis has announced the release of Rockoon, an open-source project designed to simplify OpenStack management on Kubernetes.

The acquisition of VMware by Broadcom has increased interest in OpenStack as a cost-effective alternative to proprietary solutions. Mirantis aims to meet this demand with Rockoon, which provides a toolset for deploying and managing OpenStack services on Kubernetes.

According to the company, Mirantis has been actively involved in the open-source community, contributing to over 50 open-source projects. This is directed by Randy Bias, Vice President of Open Source Strategy and Technology at Mirantis.

"Rockoon is just the beginning of Mirantis' renewed dedication to the open-source community," stated Randy Bias.

"Our roadmap includes publishing additional OpenStack components and expanding our open-source portfolio to drive innovation and strengthen the cloud infrastructure ecosystem," he said.

According to Mirantis, the name "Rockoon" reflects its innovative simplicity, inspired by technology used to launch rocket probes with balloons. Rockoon unifies operations through an enterprise-grade API integrated with Kubernetes, facilitating streamlined management of OpenStack clusters.

Thierry Carrez, General Manager of the OpenInfra Foundation, highlighted the increasing integration of OpenStack and Kubernetes, noting that "more than two thirds of OpenStack deployments leverage the integration of OpenStack and Kubernetes, with tens of millions of cores globally implementing that open infrastructure blueprint."

He added, "Mirantis opening up Rockoon to the community tracks with the company's longstanding commitment to both projects.

"Releasing Rockoon under an open-source license makes sense for the global community, given the fact that OpenStack and Kubernetes remain two of the most active open source projects, and that the two communities work together on development and integration priorities," Carrez said.

Rockoon's features include streamlined operations by consolidating OpenStack management into a single system and enhancing reliability with a stable abstraction layer over OpenStack Helm APIs. The software also improves lifecycle management using Kubernetes' orchestration capabilities, simplifying upgrades, self-healing, and scalability.

Ease of deployment is also a focus, with a script that automates the setup of an OpenStack cluster on Kubernetes, compatible with lightweight environments such as laptops and virtual machines, according to Mirantis. Rockoon aims to assist enterprises by addressing common production challenges with OpenStack Helm charts, ensuring reliability at scale.

Mirantis continues its open-source commitment by making Rockoon accessible and meeting the demand for high-performance solutions for managing OpenStack environments. The Rockoon GitHub Repository includes a deployment script for development and evaluation purposes, with updates thoroughly tested for stability and reliability.