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Microsoft buys Kinvolk to strengthen Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Arc

Microsoft announced Thursday the acquisition of Kinvolk, a maker of open source Kubernetes solutions and tools.

Berlin-based Kinvolk, which translates to “extended family,” is a 6-year-old company that manages open source projects on “all layers of the cloud native stack,” according to its site description. Its founding team of four open source software engineers started working with CoreOS to create the rkt container runtime, a command line interface for running Linux application containers in pods.

Kinvolk is also known for its open source product Flatcar Container Linux. Its Flatcar Container Linux Pro operating system is currently offered on the Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure cloud computing platforms. Kinvolk also has its own Lokomotive Kubernetes distribution, in addition to building Inspektor Gadget debugging tools.

Kinvolk created Flatcar Container Linux as a replacement and successor to CoreOS Container Linux, which was discontinued last year, according to Kinvolk’s Flatcar FAQ. Flatcar Container Linux has a minimal footprint for a small attack surface, and the operating system image is said to be “immutable”. It is considered immutable because the operating system has two partitions. The second partition receives software updates, but it will revert to the first partition if there is a problem.

Development of Flatcar Container Linux will continue at Kinvolk, even after Microsoft’s acquisition of the company, explains the Flatcar FAQ:

Microsoft and Kinvolk are fully committed to the Flatcar Container Linux user community and to providing continuity for users who have already been through a lot of upheaval in the past two years. In fact, we are committed to doubling the Flatcar community: we want to expand the universe of partners, contributors and users, to ensure a dynamic, successful and sustainable long-term future for Flatcar as a truly open and community-driven company. . project.

Microsoft acquires Kinvolk to support running Kubernetes on cloud and on-premises infrastructures. Kinvolk’s expertise will strengthen technical support for Microsoft products such as Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Arc (Microsoft’s multi-cloud management tool), according to Brendan Burns, corporate vice president of Azure Compute, in the Microsoft announcement.

Burns added that “Microsoft is committed to maintaining and building on Kinvolk’s open source culture” and that Kinvolk will be “essential in strengthening collaboration between Azure engineering teams and the larger open container community. source.”

Microsoft is also “committed to the development of the Flatcar Container Linux community” and plans to invest in it, Burns said.

The terms of the agreement were not described. Kinvolk described the change as “the same team, a different company”.