Rafay Systems announces streamlined operations for virtual machines on Kubernetes

Rafay Systems, a platform provider for Kubernetes Operations, has announced support for running virtual machines and containers on Kubernetes through its Kubernetes Operations Platform.

Rafay accelerates application modernisation and increases operational efficiency for legacy applications by empowering enterprises to deploy, manage and operate containerised and VM-based applications within one platform.

"While containerisation momentum is strong, the reality is that many applications may not be consumable as containers for several years," the company says.

"Companies need a unified operation and orchestration platform to deploy and operate VMs across data centers and cloud environments alongside containerised applications."

Users can run legacy applications with Rafay's Kubernetes Operations Platform (KOP) and have the same underlying orchestration as cloud-native applications across a fleet of clusters distributed across cloud, data center and remote or edge environments. Rafay says this eliminates the complexity of running two different orchestration modes or completely re-architect legacy applications.

"By allowing users to deploy VMs and containers on a fleet of Kubernetes clusters via a single pane of glass, Rafay eliminates the operational headache of managing them separately," says Rafay Systems senior VP, Product and Solutions, Mohan Atreya.

"Offering enterprises this flexibility means Rafay can help organisations accelerate their modernisation journey. Through our platform, users gain operational efficiency and simplicity in their deployment and operations."

The market demand for operating VMs and containers from a unified operation's platform is growing to reduce costs by consolidating technology stacks. Rather than running separate infrastructure sets for virtual machines and containerised applications, teams can centralise these stacks for everyday purposes.

The company says additional savings can be realised from software and utility costs as VMs are migrated to Kubernetes and from the potential to decrease the organisation's infrastructure footprint.

Rafay's support for VMs includes the following features:

• Streamlined admin experience: Select the virtualisation managed add-on in a cluster blueprint and apply it to a fleet of clusters. Rafay will automatically deploy the necessary virtualisation components on the target clusters.
• Standardisation and consistency: Including the virtualisation add-on as part of a cluster blueprint enables organisations to achieve standardisation and consistency across a fleet of clusters.
• VM Wizard: Application owners do not have to deal with a Kubernetes learning curve. They provide the ISO image for their VMs and use the Rafay-provided VM Wizard to configure, deploy and operate VMs on Kubernetes.
• Multi-cluster deployments: Application operators can use Rafays sophisticated, multi-cluster placement policies to deploy and operate VMs across a fleet of remote Kubernetes clusters in a single operation.
• Integrated monitoring and secure remote diagnostics: The status and health of VMs deployed across a fleet of clusters is centrally monitored and generates alerts and notifies administrators if there are operational issues. Application operators can remotely diagnose and repair operational problems with their VMs operating on remote clusters behind firewalls.