DEVOPSdigest

Morpheus Data announces major updates to its cloud management platform, focused on providing customers more freedom and faster deployment in the competitive world of multi-cloud and container automation.

Morpheus v4.0 is the largest update in 12 months and for the first time in the industry offers enterprises a unified multi-cloud and container management platform that is 100% agnostic across 20+ on-prem and public clouds. Customers can now:

- Easily build, manage, and utilize Kubernetes clusters while also simplifying management of hybrid-cloud Kubernetes with a new fully managed and CNCF certified Morpheus Kubernetes Service

- Reduce risk and cost of using Ansible plus eliminate dependence on Ansible Tower with the most secure Ansible integration of any cloud and container management platform

According to recent 451 Research survey results, 84% of enterprises are standardizing on Kubernetes over the next few years, and 62% are pursuing a hybrid IT approach that integrates on-premises and off-premises cloud resourcesi. “Kubernetes standardization and hybrid/multi-cloud adoption are well-timed together to support app modernization,” says Jay Lyman, 451 Research Principal Analyst. “A growing number of organizations require consistency, portability, and automation across hybrid infrastructures.”

This convergence creates an impossible challenge for teams asked to maintain legacy systems while also embracing new directions. Morpheus provides simplicity and flexibility to address these critical issues and eliminate vendor lock-in. “Enterprises want agility, but skill gaps and technology silos are standing in the way,” says Brad Parks, VP of Business Development, Morpheus Data. “Morpheus accelerates business transformation by bringing together VM automation, multi-cloud management, and Kubernetes service delivery in a single unified platform built for Dev and Ops.”

The Morpheus platform now includes an embedded and fully managed Morpheus Kubernetes Service, enabling customers to radically simplify the building, management, and utilization of Kubernetes. In addition to its own Kubernetes distribution, Morpheus will enable users to deploy customized stacks and access public cloud Kubernetes services from AWS, Azure, and Google.

With this update, enterprises can standardize and automate the provisioning of application stacks on bare metal servers, virtual machines, or Kubernetes clusters no matter where those resources are located. This provides simplicity for those modernizing large complex application portfolios and eliminates the limitations of cloud and container automation tools which are specifically tied to a single hypervisor or operating system. Other benefits include the ability to:

- Securely share and govern resources with granular role-based access controls

- Federate management of Kubernetes across on-prem and public cloud clusters

- Reduce cost of scale with built-in analytics and resource optimization

- Efficiently operate Kubernetes with built-in auditing, monitoring, and logging

- Automate application provisioning as code via Morpheus or HELM templates

To help de-risk the move to Kubernetes, Morpheus has worked with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) to validate the Morpheus Kubernetes Service. CNCF assures conformance of Kubernetes distributions to provide peace of mind and interoperability. “We’re excited to welcome Morpheus Data to the CNCF family and announce they are joining the ranks of the Certified Kubernetes program,” says Dan Kohn CNCF Executive Director. “Their agnostic cloud and container management solution is a great addition to the growing number of certified offerings.”

Organizations worldwide are adopting Ansible faster than any other configuration management tool because of its simple architecture and YAML playbook approach. However, accessing enterprise features like a GUI, role-based access, job scheduling, and more can require a costly upgrade to Ansible Tower.

Morpheus not only provides out-of-the-box integration with Ansible and Ansible Tower, it now enhances Ansible beyond native capabilities, providing features that can eliminate the need for Tower. Ansible can now be configured to run over the Morpheus secure agent communication bus, allowing playbooks to be applied to instances where SSH/WinRM access may not be feasible due to security constraints. This integration supports Linux and Windows plus can also be configured to query secrets from the Morpheus Cypher service (similar to HashiCorp Vault). Additional features include the ability to:

- View real-time job status updates and detailed debug level log output

- Execute phased based and operational workflows using multiple playbooks

- Apply governance, auditing, and reporting across more than just Ansible

Most importantly, Morpheus was designed to be a true enterprise-wide orchestration and automation platform. Rather than spending time writing complex playbooks, customers benefit from direct Morpheus integration into ITSM, IPAM, DNS, Load Balancers, and more. The result is a much less brittle approach to automation where Ansible can do what it does well while Morpheus handles self-service provisioning across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Extending beyond self-service provisioning, the new Morpheus Jobs engine enables self-service automation of virtually any task against virtually any local or remote target. Similar to utilities such as vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) or Rundeck, this new feature provides the ability to simplify day-2 operations such as user, infrastructure, and patch management. Morpheus Jobs is a powerful and flexible tool that can execute on a scheduled or ad-hoc basis using any task type including Bash, PowerShell, http, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Groovy, Python, jRuby, and JavaScript.