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Microsoft has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Docker. Together they create a Cloud Native Application Bundle (CNAB), which should become the standard specification for the packaging and running of distributed apps. That’s what Silicon Angle reports.

The bundle must be able to work with everything from the Azure cloud and the Docker Engine, as well as open source platforms such as Kubernetes and OpenStack. The bundle should make it easier for developers to define which application resources need to be deployed across different runtimes, including public and private clouds, workstations, air-gapped networks, and IoT environments.

The specification comes with an open source reference implementation called Duffle. Duffle is used to install, upgrade and uninstall CNAB bundles. There is also a new extension for Visual Studio Code, which makes it easier to create and host new bundles. There is also an Electron Installer for easy installation.

Docker has already implemented CNAB for containerized applications and will further extend the specification across its platforms to support the development of new apps. The plan is to integrate CNAB with the Docker App tool so that bundles can be packaged as Docker images. This makes it possible to manage app development lifecycles via the Docker Hub or Docker Enterprise.

Open source

Microsoft also announced that it is making three popular Windows UX frameworks available for free on GitHub. This includes Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Forms and the Windows UI XAML Library. It also extends the model for .NET Foundation subscribers, allowing everyone in the open source community to participate in deciding the future direction of the overall developer platform.

“This means that members of the community have a direct say in the foundation’s operations,” says the company. “This new structure will help the .NET Foundation to meet the demands of the growing .NET open source ecosystem.”

Finally, some important new tools are being released for a number of prominent open source organizations. These include Virtual Kubelet, which is donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, which deals with projects such as Kubernetes. Virtual Kublet allows developers to easily connect Kubernetes nodes with other services such as Azure Container Instances, AWS Fargate and Azure IoT Edge.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.