DEVOPSdigest

Rancher Labs announced Rancher 2.1, the latest version of its open source Kubernetes management platform.

Rancher 2.1 introduces next generation automatic cluster operations and application management functionalities, as well as a migration path for users moving from Rancher’s Cattle orchestrator to Rancher Kubernetes. The latest release provides all key functionalities needed for enterprises to comfortably adopt and manage Kubernetes within their organization.

“Rancher continues to be the de facto choice for enterprises looking to run containers and Kubernetes in production,” said Sheng Liang, CEO and co-founder of Rancher Labs. “With Rancher 2.1, we’re providing key upgrades to the product that further enables any enterprise to embrace Kubernetes and accelerate development, reduce infrastructure costs and improve application reliability.”

Along with scalability improvements, Rancher 2.1 introduces the ability to define and manage Kubernetes Clusters as code with Rancher. Additionally, Rancher is now enabling users to snapshot and export the complete configuration of Kubernetes clusters managed by Rancher, and later on restore Kubernetes clusters by importing the same configuration file.

Additional key features of Rancher 2.1 include:

- Expanded integration with authentication providers: Rancher now integrates with PingID, Microsoft Active Directory Federation Server, OpenLDAP, Keycloak, FreeIPA and Azure Active Directory.

- Drain and cordon support for nodes: Simplified process for admins to quickly cordon and drain nodes from a managed Kubernetes cluster during maintenance windows.

- Added support for project-level quotas: Administrators can now set resource quotas for users and teams that can then distributed between Kubernetes name spaces.

- Improved application management functionality: Rancher 2.1 adds improved support for helm charts, improvements to ingress management and improved logging and alerting functionality.

- Expanded Command Line Interface (CLI): Teams can now automate how they interface with Rancher and Kubernetes.

- Expanded DevOps tooling: Rancher 2.1 includes fully integrated CI/CD functionality that works with Kubernetes to automate build processes and release management.

- Support for GitLab: Rancher 2.1 adds support for GitLab to Rancher CI/CD.

Rancher 2.1 is also the supported upgrade release for Rancher 1.6 users. Rancher 2.1 includes a migration path for users to move from Rancher’s Cattle orchestrator to Rancher Kubernetes. Rancher 2.1 also provides integration tooling that analyzes Rancher Compose files and outlines how users can migrate an application directly to Kubernetes.