Announcing Preview Availability of the Mariner AKS Container Host

In another important step for the CBL-Mariner (aka Mariner) project, we’re pleased to announce the Preview availability of Mariner as a container host for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Mariner is in production today with services such as Xbox, Playfab, Minecraft, and 100+ Azure services; today, we are delighted to share that the AKS container host used by these services is available to all AKS customers.

Mariner as a container host is optimized for AKS, has a smaller image size (and security surface), and leverages the same software supply chain used by Microsoft internal engineering teams and services. In addition, AKS on Azure Stack HCI and AKS on Windows Server utilize the same container host as well, providing consistency across the cloud and edge.

Benefits

• Optimized to run in Azure: Mariner packages and images are run through a suite of Azure validation tests. All packages are built and signed in Microsoft pipelines, and are verified prior to image generation.
• Supply Chain Security: Use the same Linux distribution and software built and tested to run securely on Azure.
• Smaller, leaner Linux: Mariner is designed with a minimalist view, cloud focus. Window managers and other graphical are removed, resulting in a lower attack surface, reduced dependencies, and a generally smaller footprint. This ultimately helps reduce update interruptions and improves reboot speeds.
• Operational Consistency: Because the same container host is used across AKS in the cloud and on-prem, customers know exactly what’s inside, which simplifies management and administrative tasks. This consistency lets customers more effectively shift their workloads to take advantage of true hybrid cloud functionality.

How to Participate in Mariner AKS Container Host Preview

If you’d like to explore the benefits of using Mariner as your AKS container host, follow these steps to deploy Mariner through Azure CLI.  

And that’s it – you should now be up and running with Mariner as your new AKS host for the designated cluster!

In addition to participating in the Preview of Mariner as an AKS container host and letting us know how it’s working for you; we’d also love to hear your thoughts on how Mariner should evolve in the future as it relates to containers and Kubernetes. Input from the community is incredibly important to the future development of Mariner, so let us know what you think!