Mirantis announces it is now part of the Cloud Foundry Foundation-- but, unlike other foundation members, it will not build an own Cloud Foundry distribution, as instead it will retain its OpenStack-exclusive focus.
How come? Mirantis wants to use its membership to further integrate the OpenStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) with the Cloud Foundry Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
Or, as the company puts it, "it is the best way to give our customers choice in how they architect their cloud, and this philosophy applies to the PaaS layer. Whether it’s Cloud Foundry, Docker, OpenShift, Kubernetes, or some other PaaS-- we don’t care as long as it runs on OpenStack."
The announcement comes just a day after the closure of Nebula, a former major OpenStack player. Mirantis believes this is a sign of OpenStack being at a critical time, as alternative technologies-- namely containers-- prove to being easier (if arguably more limited) solutions to the same issues OpenStack handles.
Seen as such, no wonder Mirantis wants to play nice with Cloud Foundry, joining the foundation in order to ensure the integration of the two technologies.
"[W]e would rather stick to OpenStack, which is what we do best," Mirantis concludes. "Again, our customers should be able to choose Cloud Foundry, Docker, OpenShift, Kubernetes, or some other PaaS player-- our mission is to make sure it works best on OpenStack. Joining the Cloud Foundry Foundation is an important step in that direction."
