DigitalOcean Unveils Managed Kubernetes Services, Channel Plans

Seven months after launching the early-access release of its Kubernetes-as-a-service offering, DigitalOcean says it will be available as a general release for production use by business-application developers in early 2019.

For the channel, that means DigitalOcean’s new release will help to make it easier for business developers to build their apps through the use of an automated Kubernetes service that removes much of the hassle and difficulty of setting up and running the platform.

The coming service, which was unveiled recently at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2018 conference, is designed to make Kubernetes more approachable and simpler for users, Shiven Ramji, the vice president of product for Digital Ocean, told Channel Futures.

DigitalOcean’s Shiven Ramji

“In Kubernetes in general, there is quite a bit of a learning curve,” said Ramji.

But by automating many parts of the deployment and configuration processes, as well as providing a full library of tutorials and best practices for using it, DigitalOcean has been able to create and mature its services for business users. Instead of providing all of the functions and capabilities of Kubernetes from the start, the service is built to give users the basic up front and then allow more things to be brought in as needed, he said.

“It gives them what they need now and lets them grow into it,” said Ramji. “We help you with the relevant experience and configuration options to get going. We have everything for a non-pro user to make it easy, but if you are an expert, then you have all the controls at your disposal too.”

The upcoming service removes much of the pain of Kubernetes from a cluster operator standpoint, he said.

“Our goal is to continue to improve operations and management of the systems for both the cluster operator and application operator. We’ve made the initial cluster-creation experience simple. A user can get it up and going in less than 2 minutes, focusing to start only with the necessary things to get going.

Some 30,000 developers and teams signed up to use the early-access version after it was announced back in May, according to DigitalOcean.

“With DigitalOcean Kubernetes, we make running containerized apps consumable for any developer, regardless of their skills or resources” through automation and the provisioning of nodes to make it faster and easier to run containerized apps, said Ramji. “We also infuse guided UI experiences and open APIs to provide the right level of support throughout the developer’s journey.”

The upcoming general release adds new features based on early customer feedback, including: guided configuration assistance; open APIs to enable easy integrations with developer tools and to help create and update cluster and nodes settings; and expanded version support for three versions of Kubernetes. The service, which is based on open source, will support the three latest version of Kubernetes at all times to add flexibility for business users.

To deploy the upcoming services, users will be able to start by defining the size and location of their worker nodes, which will then let DigitalOcean provision, manage and optimize the services that are needed to run the Kubernetes cluster.

To bring all of this to more business users, the company is building out its channel program, which is starting with an initial set of channel partners and resellers who are selling to …