Guest: Randy Bias (LinkedIn)
Company: Mirantis (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

As Mirantis is doubling down on its support for open source, the company today announced support for two CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) projects: Harbor and KubeVirt. Harbor is a registry for managing container images, while KubeVirt allows running virtual machines on Kubernetes.

Mirantis aims to offer its customers flexibility by supporting both open-source solutions and their own enterprise products. They provide various support levels for Harbor and KubeVirt, including 8×5 and 24×7 options, and plan to support these across multiple platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and VMware.

Industry veteran Randy Bias, who recently joined Mirantis as the VP of Open Source Strategy and Technology, discussed the company’s support for Harbor and KubeVirt. “We aim to be a 100% pure play open source player,” said Bias. “We’ve decided to give our customers as much choice as possible. We want them to be able to use 100% open source.”

Questions discussed

• How does Mirantis work with both Harbor and KubeVirt?
• What is the reason that Mirantis decided to provide support to these two projects?
• What does this support look like for each project from the perspective of users and customers?
• Is Mirantis planning to offer similar support services for other open source projects in the Kubernetes or CNCF ecosystem?
• How should the open source community look at Mirantis now?

Introduction to Harbor and KubeVirt

• Mirantis aims to support customers whether they use Mirantis products or 100% open-source solutions, offering support for Harbor and KubeVirt.
• Bias explains that Harbor is a registry for managing container images, providing governance, compliance, and a catalog of images.
• KubeVirt is described as a methodology for running virtual machines on top of Kubernetes, allowing for the use of containers as a delivery mechanism for virtualization technology like KVM.

Mirantis’ New Direction and Support for Open Source Projects

• Bias recalls a previous interview where they discussed Mirantis’ new direction of focusing on open source, aiming to be a 100% pure play open source player.
• Mirantis previously had its own registry, Mirantis Secure Registry (MSR) but now supports Harbor, an open-source registry, and KubeVirt, in addition to their OpenStack-based product, Mirantis OpenStack on Kubernetes (MOSK).
• Mirantis aims to be a reliable partner for supporting open-source solutions in any way customers need. The goal is to provide customers with as much choice as possible, allowing them to use open-source solutions or Mirantis’ enterprise products.

Future Announcements and Open Source Strategy

• Bias hints at future announcements, including a new open-source product called Project 2A, which will be discussed at KubeCon.
• Mirantis aims to offer multiple tiers of support, from basic open-source deployment to enterprise-level support for mission-critical components.

Mirantis’ Role in the Open Source Community

• Mirantis has extensive experience running large-scale OpenStack and Kubernetes deployments, ensuring reliability and regular updates.
• Bias highlights that the shift is towards providing both packaged enterprise products and open-source solutions, meeting customers’ needs for both.
• Mirantis aims to contribute more to the Kubernetes ecosystem, pushing back their OpenStack operator for Kubernetes into the community.

Democratizing Open Source with Commercial Support

• Bias explains that Mirantis is making open-source projects more accessible and democratizing their use by providing commercial support. This support is essential for enterprise adoption of new technologies, as IT teams cannot be experts in every solution.
• Mirantis aims to provide the necessary support for open-source projects to be adopted and maintained in enterprise environments.
• The company aims to contribute more to the open-source community and provide robust support for open-source projects in production environments.