CoreOS goes native on vSphere and vCloud Air

VMware has announced that CoreOS is now supported natively under vSphere 5.5.

What's that you say? A minor Linux distro being supported on an old version of vSphere isn't a huge deal.

Stick with us here, because CoreOS last year announced Rocket, a containerisation play that very deliberately offers an alternative to Docker. That means the VMware didn't just support a minor Linux distro, it also more or less gave CoreOS and Rocket a ringing endorsement.

CoreOS is, as the name suggests, a rather stripped back affair intended for use in “modern infrastructure stacks” and unashamedly modelled on the needs and practices of hyperscale operators like Google and Facebook. VMware's very keen on hyperscale operations, so giving CoreOS to Good Virtualisation Seal of Approval isn't a startling thing for it to do. Nor is supporting CoreOS in vCloud Air: Virtzilla's trying to make sure its cloud is fit for all purposes.

What, then, to make of the fact that VMware also embraced Docker last year? Is the company juggling two suitors?

Yes, and VMware's proud of it. The company's position is that containers work best under vSphere because containers need to run somewhere and virtualised, private-cloud-configured virtual machines have the elasticity and manageability that containers need. What's good for Docker is therefore good for CoreOS in VMware's book. Virtzilla's therefore saying the new relationship is all about giving customers a new choice.

CoreOS' part of the bargain is the new open-vm-tools package that brings full integration with VMware's APIs and “enables better performance and enables management of CoreOS VMs running in all VMware environments.”

If you want to play, there's a .OVA file of CoreOS to be had here. ®