Google is extending its support for Istio, an open source platform for orchestrating communications between Kubernetes containers. Specifically, Google is launching beta support for managed Istio services on Google Cloud, the company said Tuesday.

"We supported it as an open source project, and now we're making it easier to use," Jennifer Lin, Google Cloud product management director, told Light Reading. Developers need to be able to write applications, test them, and put them into production many times a day, while operators need to be sure the process is secure and reliable. "We want to remove friction between the developer and operator communities. How do we strike the balance?" she added.

Istio provides security, communications, policy application, traffic management, diagnostics and communications, as well as monitoring health for containerized applications.

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Istio complements Kubernetes; Istio handles inter-container communications while Kubernetes manages container lifecyles, spinning containers up and down as needed. Kubernetes is an important component in the move to cloud-native applications.

Istio will be supported as a component of Google Kubernetes Engine. GKE is a component of Google's Cloud Services Platform, which the company launched in July. (See Google Launches Cloud Services Platform, a Toolkit for Kubernetes & Serverless Apps.)

Google is integrating Istio with Stackdriver, Google Cloud Platform's native monitoring and logging suite.

Google launched managed Istio beta support at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, a conference for Kubernetes and cloud-native development, in Seattle. Also at that conference, VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) launched its own Istio support Monday, with NSX Service Mesh, building Istio into its NSX software-defined networking platform. (See VMware Climbs On the Istio Train for Kubernetes Management.)

Istio is an open source project backed by IBM, Google, Red Hat, Lyft and Pivotal, with support from Cisco. Istio went to version 1.0 in July. (See IBM & Google Launch 'Istio' Cloud Software, but Amazon & Microsoft Skip the Party, Istio: The New Open Source Cloud Hotness and Google Launches Cloud Services Platform, a Toolkit for Kubernetes & Serverless Apps.)

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— Mitch Wagner Executive Editor, Light Reading