Dive Brief:

• Google released a production-ready version of Kubernetes on Tuesday.

• The software is designed to manage large numbers of containers — an emerging form of virtualization.

• Google originally released the software as an open-source project in 2014. Since then, it has received input from more than 400 contributors.

Dive Insight:

Enterprise administrators now have full access to the software, which Google said could become a key part of an emerging approach to systems design known as micro-services. With micro-services, applications are broken into multiple components and packaged in virtual containers. The virtual containers enable them to be moved around or duplicated easily to manage heavy workloads.

The container-based approach “has fundamentally changed our game in terms of efficiencies, stability of applications, and the amount of overhead it takes to accomplish a specific outcome,” said Craig McLuckie, Google's product manager. “Our goal is to bring this to enterprises everywhere and give them the same basic experience.”