Kong released the 1.0 version of its core open source platform API gateway that tackles the delicate task of managing the flow of information between an organization and various methods of deploying modern microservices. The platform, which was previously known as its "Community Edition" and now just "Kong,"  is also the basis for a deeper push into building a service control platform.

Kong CEO and co-founder Augusto Marietti has touted the company’s platform as an “air traffic control to manage, broker, and hold APIs.” This means that it acts as an orchestration API between an organization’s application data and deployment models like containers, cloud, and serverless computing environments.

The company explained that the 1.0 release means the platform is “feature-complete” and not just production ready as is often the meaning of a 1.0 release. In fact, it claims that a number of large enterprises like Yahoo Japan, WeWork, Ferrari, and Healthcare.gov have been using past releases to support production services.

The platform itself supports service mesh patterns that allow for Kong to be deployed alongside each instance to manage information flow between services. It can also then manage the scaling of those services as needed. It can be deployed as a standalone service mesh or can be integrated with other service mesh options like Istio.

It also includes a Kubernetes Ingress controller that can manage the lifecycle of applications that are running on the container orchestration platform. The platform adds less than 10 milliseconds of processing latency between services in a container ecosystem.

Kong also offers an enterprise version of the platform that includes more management control built on top of the open source consumer version.

Marietti said the 1.0 release will also serve as the basis for the company’s broader service control platform plans. Those plans will use artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and API security to more intelligently orchestrate information between Level 4 and Level 7 of any network deployment.

Kong was founded under the name Mashape in 2009. It pushed its Kong platform into the open source community in 2015, and last year it officially took on the platform name for the overall business. The company has raised $26.1 million in funding through four rounds, with its most recent an $18 million Series B round early last year.