Microsoft has introduced the open-source Radius platform, which allows companies to more easily deploy applications in on-premises environments, as well as in public clouds such as Azure and AWS.
According to the tech giant, the open-source (under an Apache 2.0 license) Radius platform provides a Web-based API and supporting tools for deploying and managing cloud-based applications in both on-premises and cloud-based environments. Here, the server-side API components act as a control plane.
The Radius API can be hosted in a Kubernetes cluster or as a standalone set of processes or containers. The tools associated with the Radius platform communicate with the API.
Automation tool
At the heart of the platform is the Universal Control Platform (UCP). This is code written in Go that is based on the design features of the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) control plane, but adapted to work within different cloud environments and systems.
Azure Resource Manager is an Azure management service that enables the creation, deletion and updating of Azure services. Like ARM, the UCP also provides a Rest API and routes requests that allow resource providers to manage services.
The tech giant’s now-released Radius platform is therefore an automation tool that “delegates” current automation to other providers. For example, providers of CI/CD systems, application delivery pipelines and Gitops systems. Although the platform focuses on Kubernetes, it is also suitable for use with other deployment systems Microsoft further indicates.
Functionality
Among other things, the platform allows developers to specify which resources they need, while allowing infrastructure providers to determine how those resources are delivered.
So-called “radius recipes” support Terraform or Biceps programming languages to describe resources and differentiate between the interests of infrastructure providers and developers. This by automating infrastructure deployment.
The platform should also further promote the use of multicloud and provides reports on how applications are composed. The latter with a so-called “Application Graph” feature.
The project is still in its first phase, according to developers on the Microsoft Azure Incubations Team. The developers want to register the platform as a new project with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
The Radius platform is currently only available for on-premises environments and the public clouds Azure and AWS. Other public cloud environments will follow soon.
Tip: Red Hat now integrates OpenStack with Red Hat OpenShift