Platform9, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup founded by former VMware engineers, is making its managed Kubernetes platform available in beta to potential customers. The enterprise-ready platform is intended to make it easier for users to deploy and manage Docker containers and also to orchestrate containerized workloads.

Platform9 uses a fork of the OpenStack cloud platform. The startup’s product allows companies to turn private servers into in-house versions of public cloud services like Amazon‘s. Last year the company debuted a virtual appliance that integrates its OpenStack controller service with VMware vSphere services.

According to Madhura Maskasky, co-founder and vice president of product at Platform9, the company selected the Kubernetes framework because it believes it has a strong community and is gaining wide-spread acceptance from enterprises that want to build applications for containers.

“We decided to support Kubernetes as part of an offering to enable orchestration of applications for containers,” Maskasky says.

That doesn’t mean that in the future Platform9 might not consider an alternative framework like Apache Mesos, but Maskasky says that as a startup, the company has to focus its resources and decided Kubernetes was the best option. “We are betting on Kubernetes in near-term,” she says. “In the future, if we notice that Mesos is key in big data use cases, then we can enable a managed Mesos platform as well,” she adds.

Maskasky says that many enterprises are looking for a managed platform, like Platform9’s, because they can install and deploy it on native bare metal. Platform9 also eliminates the need to hire staff to oversee and manage the orchestration layer and provide constant monitoring.

“We provide the value-add,” Maskasky says. “We enable integration with existing technology and enable a single sign-on.” She added that the managed Kubernetes platform supports containers and virtual machines.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Platform9 first launched its service in January 2015. In August 2015, the company raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures.