D2iQ released an updated version of its container orchestration platform, emphasizing the importance of the open-source community in bolstering platform product and how it positions the former Mesosphere in battling against larger rivals like VMware, Red Hat, and SUSE.

The D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP) update is based on the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Cluster API (CAPI) open-source standard. D2iQ CEO Tobi Knaup said APIs play an important role in reducing the complexity of Kubernetes management and making it “seamless … on any sort of infrastructure." Wherever Kubernetes is running — a public cloud, private cloud, or the edge — there should be a single point of control, he added.

“You should have a single pane of glass that allows you to set the right policies and manage that entire fleet,” Knaup said. “And we believe the best way to do that is through using declarative APIs.”

The cloud-native software vendor says it avoids creating forked versions of open-source applications to integrate into DKP. Knaup said the vendor’s “default” is to instead look to the open-source community for solutions to problems.

“We believe that open-source innovation is a strong force,” he explained. “A lot of the best solutions for a given problem are out there.” This allows the vendor to avoid issues of incompatible updates and sets DKP apart from other managed Kubernetes services, Knaup explained. 

“That is really what our customers expect,” he said. “They see that CNCF landscape or the list of CNCF projects as a blessed, known, good list of projects. That's what they want to [use to] build their stack.”

Knaup identified VMware and its Tanzu platform, Red Hat's OpenShift, and SUSE via its Rancher acquisition, as D2iQ’s main competitors. He emphasized D2iQ’s customer support as a differentiating factor within the managed Kubernetes space.

“We partner very closely with [our customers],” Knaup explained. “We listen to their needs. We're often able to include feature requests or things like that into our next upcoming release.”

He added that customers have said D2iQ provides a clearer sense of return on investment than competitors. D2iQ is able to get customers’ platforms up and running in days, while it might take months for a competing managed Kubernetes service. “[Customers] see the value much faster,” Knaup said. “We're more nimble in that way.”

D2iQ aims to move in the direction of “automating the hard things about cloud native,” Knaup said, including extending its products to increase compatibility with large cloud providers.

The vendor also plans to continue investing in its machine learning product, D2iQ Kaptain. Knaup said that platform will be “the best machine learning platform to run edge to cloud deployment.”