For those who use Kubernetes to orchestrate containers for app development, there’s a new tool available that aims to make those clusters easier to use. Microsoft recently announced the release of a new tool, Kubernetes Draft, which streamlines application development and deployment on any Kubernetes cluster.
Here’s a bit more about the new Draft tool for Kubernetes and what it could mean for app developers.
How Kubernetes Draft works
Draft targets the “inner loop” of developers’ workflow. So it works while you write code and iterate, but before you commit any version changes. To use it, you can run “draft create” to have the tool detect application language and write out a simple Dockerfile and a Kubernetes Helm Chart into the source tree.
From there, you can type “draft up” to ship source code to any Kubernetes cluster. This builds the app in that cluster using the Dockerfile and deploys it into a dev environment using the Helm Chart. Then you can test your app live or make changes in the editor or IDE.
Draft also gives developers the opportunity to access work on apps both remotely and locally. So if you start coding alone on a laptop, you still have the ability to access your work in the cloud where you can access all of your app’s production dependencies. This can be a useful feature for developers who like to start projects on their own but then transfer those same projects to the cloud where they can collaborate or really test an app’s viability.
How to use Draft
For those interested in using the new Kubernetes Draft tool, it is currently available and open source, as many of Microsoft’s ACS tools have been and continue to be. You can access Draft on GitHub. So you can spin up a Kubernetes cluster using ACS to take Draft for a test drive today.
Photo credit: Freerange Stock
