Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) bedazzled a handful of updates to its still shiny Ezmeral Container Platform to further bolster its hybrid cloud strategy that targets rivals VMware and IBM/Red Hat.

The highest-level update is an extension of its Kubernetes cluster management tool that provides a single pane of glass to deploy and manage on-premises Kubernetes deployments, those deployed to Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS), and to any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes cluster.

The tool allows for management of resource allocation, user authentication, workload deployment, and monitoring of any Kubernetes cluster. There is also a built-in application store that helps with the deployment of an application on any Kubernetes cluster.

HPE noted that the next release, which is due in the fall, will extend public cloud support to clusters running on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Underneath that control plane update, the Ezmeral Container Platform gains deeper integration of a handful of already established Kubernetes-focused projects. This should make it easier for customers manage those projects within the platform.

The most significant is the out-of-the-box integration of the Istio service mesh. This allows users to run a service mesh on each cluster and the ability to deploy Istio on a per-tenant basis for independent monitoring of applications running on the service mesh.

The move is significant for the Istio ecosystem, which recently underwent some upheaval when Google decided to move that project into a newly formed open source organization controlled by Google rather than into a management-neutral organization. The move drew the ire of the other Istio co-developers like IBM, which was expecting the service mesh to be moved into the CNCF.

The update also adds the open source Harbor registry. This will allow users to scan images for security vulnerabilities with image signing to simplify the use of certified and trusted images to build applications running in a container. Harbor recently hit graduation status at the CNCF. HPE also included new role-based access controls (RBACs) that allow each tenant to get its own secure workspace within the central image registry.

The Ezmeral Container Platform also includes a pre-integrated Data Fabric service for persistent container storage and shared global storage. This provides the same capabilities as native Kubernetes storage but can run as a workload on a Kubernetes cluster for easier installation, upgrading, and scaling. This tackles issues surrounding the ability to deploy stateful applications on containers with access to shared data.

HPE launched its Kubernetes-focused Container Platform late last year. It’s designed to allow for containers to be built once and deployed with “one click” on any bare metal, virtual machines (VMs), and cloud instance.

The platform tapped into HPE’s acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data software vendor BlueData in 2018, and cloud-native storage provider MapR last August. All of that was integrated into the broader Ezmeral package last month.

Ezmeral is HPE’s answer to similar Kubernetes-focused platforms like VMware’s Tanzu and Red Hat’s OpenShift Kubernetes product.

IDC analyst Matt Eastwood explained to SDxCentral that Ezmeral provides HPE with independence from having to rely on its rivals.

“Without Ezmeral, HPE would be heavily dependent on partner IP from organizations like VMware, Red Hat, Nutanix, Google, and Microsoft,” he said in an email to SDxCentral. “In addition to the margin challenge that this would present for HPE, it also lacked differentiation when one considers the full spectrum of edge-to-core needs in the market. That said, many of these partner organizations have considerable market presence, which HPE needs to overcome.”

HPE is also coming off a rough second quarter that saw a steep drop in revenues and mandatory pay cuts across the organization.