Kong revealed it is partnering with Red Hat to encourage the adoption of its Kong Konnect connectivity platform for managing APIs (application programming interfaces) on top of the Red Hat OpenShift platform based on Kubernetes.
Reza Shafii, Veep of product at Kong, said that the company has managed to earn Red Hat Operator certification for Kong Konnect on Red Hat OpenShift, which makes its API management platform the first third-party offering to attain that goal. Kong Konnect will also be available on the Red Hat Marketplace.
What the platform does
Kong Konnect is based on an instance of Envoy proxy software that, just like Kubernetes, is progressing under the banner of Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Kong has contributed Kuma, a service mesh for managing APIs, to the CNCF.
Using the Kong Konnect platform, IT teams can access an API gateway and admit controllers as well as a service mesh based on Kuma.
Red Hat already has its own API management platform, which it gained from acquiring 3scale in 2016. The company also offers a Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh platform on open source Istio (created by Google).
Not exclusive
Kong has been lobbying for a lighter-weight alternative service mesh that runs on top of Envoy proxy software, advanced under CNCF.
Istio does not fall under the CNCF auspices and is developed by an open-source consortium led by Google and Big Blue.
Kong and Red Hat aren’t an exclusive couple though, since Kong Konnect will be available on other Kubernetes distros, while Red Hat pursues relationships with other API gateway providers. However, this alliance is a vote of confidence for the Kuma services mesh platform, which will help Kong achieve more as most organizations managing hundreds of APIs will need a service mesh.
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