Mirantis Updates Lens Kubernetes IDE & Launches New Distro

Earlier in the year, Mirantis, the current owner of Docker’s enterprise solutions, completed the acquisition of Lens, a desktop application designed to function as an integrated development environment (IDE) for Kubernetes cluster management. Mirantis CEO Adrian Ionel communicated at the time the company’s intention to equip businesses with the necessary tools for the rapid development of contemporary applications. Today, the company is progressing further in this direction with the release of an extensions API for Lens, significantly expanding the tool’s original functionality.

Alongside this Lens update, Mirantis also announced a new open-source initiative today: k0s. The company characterizes it as a current, 100% upstream, standard Kubernetes distribution engineered and packaged without any compromises.

It is presented as a single, streamlined binary, requiring only a kernel as an operating system dependency. Built upon upstream Kubernetes, k0s is compatible with both Intel and Arm architectures and can operate on any Linux host or Windows Server 2019 worker nodes. Considering these prerequisites, the development team believes k0s is suitable for a wide range of applications, from local development clusters to private data centers, telecommunications clusters, and hybrid cloud environments.

“Our goal was to establish a modern, dependable, and adaptable foundation for diverse scenarios involving Kubernetes. We aimed for something that utilizes standard upstream Kubernetes and is flexible enough to accommodate deployments from typical cloud-based setups to various edge and IoT applications,” explained Jussi Nummelin, senior principal engineer at Mirantis and the creator of k0s. “Drawing on our past experiences, we were keen to avoid the complexities of maintaining setup and packaging for numerous OS distributions. Therefore, we adopted a single binary packaging model, allowing us to concentrate on the core challenges rather than different packaging formats like debs, rpms, and others.”

Mirantis possesses considerable experience in the distribution space. The company initially offered one of the first significant OpenStack distributions back in 2013.

Image Credits: Mirantis

Regarding Lens, the new API, scheduled to launch next week in conjunction with KubeCon, will empower developers to enhance the service with support for additional Kubernetes-integrated components and services.

“The Extensions API will facilitate collaboration with technology providers and evolve Lens into a comprehensive cloud-native development IDE that can be expanded and improved without limitations,” stated Miska Kaipiainen, co-founder of the Lens open-source project and senior director of engineering at Mirantis. “For vendors, Lens will offer an optimal platform to connect with tens of thousands of active Kubernetes developers and distribute your technology in a novel way. Simultaneously, Lens users will benefit from high-quality features, technologies, and integrations more easily than ever before.”

The company has already secured commitments from several prominent CNCF projects and vendors within the cloud-native ecosystem to develop integrations. These include Kubernetes security companies Aqua and Carbonetes, API gateway developer Ambassador Labs, and AIOps firm Carbon Relay. Venafi, nCipher, Tigera, Kong, and StackRox are also currently developing their extensions.

“The introduction of an extensions API to Lens represents a significant advancement for Kubernetes operators and developers, as it will encourage an ecosystem of cloud-native tools accessible within the context of Kubernetes’ full capabilities, directly at the user’s disposal,” said Viswajith Venugopal, StackRox software engineer and creator of KubeLinter. “We anticipate integrating KubeLinter with Lens to provide a more streamlined user experience.”