The game is afoot to make Linux containers palatable for the enterprise. Mirantis is making its move today, announcing the integration of Google's Kubernetes into the Mirantis OpenStack distribution.

Kubernetes is a tool that allows a cluster of Linux containers, including Docker containers, to be managed as one object with one IP address. It's a way of simplifying the overall management of containers.

Kubernetes isn't necessarily easy to deploy, but Mirantis claims its bundle makes a one-click job of it.

"We're taking a technology that's not necessarily easy for the enterprise to consume because the enterprise doesn't have dozens and dozens of Google-caliber engineers," says Adrian Ionel, Mirantis' CEO.

The key is to support the service-level agreements and especially the security that the enterprise demands. Containers have been popular in development environments, but what Mirantis is pushing for is the use of containers in production.

That theme is likely to continue this year for Docker and containers in general. A set of IBM cloud announcements on Monday included Enterprise Containers — a service providing Docker support on IBM's OpenStack-based cloud, complete with security.

Mirantis' Kubernetes support will make its public debut with a demo Wednesday at a Kubernetes meetup in San Francisco, Ionel says. The Kubernetes package will be available on StackForge for free in raw form, but its "real" release, in a sense, will come in April. That's when Mirantis plans to release the technical preview of a supported (read: not free) version that's fully enterprise grade.