DevOps can look forward to packaging their distributed apps
Write once, run anywhere. You’ve perhaps heard that before in the context of Java, Flash, or Xamarin, among other cross-platform technologies. It’s been more or less possible for a while, though seldom to everyone’s satisfaction. But with the widespread adoption of cloud services and containers, operating across platforms has become more complicated.
Container debutante Docker and anything-but-phones biz Microsoft have a fresh take on the dream, an open source spec for packaging and running distributed applications called a Cloud Native Application Bundle (CNAB).
It sounds a bit like what the Docker software – an open source project for wrapping applications in containers and automating their deployment – is supposed to do.
But, as the rapid rise of Kubernetes demonstrated, those running applications at scale have a more expansive set of concerns – managing clusters of containers, and the distributed applications therein, across diverse infrastructure.
CNAB aims to meet that broader operations goal. It’s an attempt to unify the packaging, deployment, and lifecycle management of distributed applications, multiple services, and varied tool chains through the use of a single package format specification.
