Google has launched its Anthos hybrid cloud with its Google Kubernetes Engine enabling application container movement between on-premises and the AWS, Azure and GCP clouds.
Google’s Cloud Services Platform has been rebranded Anthos, which means flower in Greek (Anthe prefix) and the main component is the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) being available in customer data centres (GKE On-Premises version).
Storage for containers is included, with announcements from HPE, Intel and Elastifile plus support from Cisco (with its HyperFlex HCI), Dell EMC, Lenovo and VMware.
GKE is available in Google’s own cloud and also in AWS and Azure, meaning that containers can be moved to and fro between these GKE environments, with no change.
HPE, Elastifile and Intel
HPE has two validated designs supporting Anthos. One covers the SimpliVity hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) system and the other involves a ProLiant server backed up with Nimble storage. They will be available through the GreenLake managed services scheme.
Scale-out file system supplier Elastifile, whose cloud-native Elastifile Cloud File System (ECFS) product is available in the Google cloud, has announced EKFS. This is the Elastifile Container File System for Kubernetes and it supports GKE On-Prem and is available for the Google Cloud Platform Marketplace.
Elastifile says file storage has emerged as one of the standard platforms for achieving data persistence in containerised environments. EKFS, which supports the Container Storage Interface (CSI) standard, delivers persistence for GKE On-Prem deployments.
Intel has a reference design for Anthos involving gen 2 Xeon P processors and an optimised Kubernetes software stack. It will publish the production design as an Intel Select Solution, as well as a developer platform.
The reference design will be delivered by mid-2019 with expected product delivery from OEMs and systems integrators later this year.
