SUSE selects Tigera’s Calico as an option to RKE 2

Tigera announced that SUSE has chosen to add open source Calico container network interface (CNI) plugin as an option to Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) 2, enabling consistent Kubernetes network policy definition and enforcement.

Calico provides highly scalable, high-performance and resource-efficient Kubernetes networking and security that works across multi-cloud and hybrid environments with support for multiple data planes, such as eBPF, Linux and Windows.

“Now users get a single solution for Kubernetes networking and security and the option to add advanced full-stack security and observability functionality that many enterprises want in their Kubernetes deployments,” said Amit Gupta, vice president of product management of Tigera.

Due to be generally available later this year, RKE2 will enable enterprises to deploy Kubernetes clusters on any infrastructure, including on premises, cloud, and near edge.

Kubernetes’ networking, security, and observability for such deployments are critical to prevent an organization’s exposure to a multitude of security and compliance issues. With Calico integrated as part of RKE2, users can secure, observe, and troubleshoot their Kubernetes environments across multiple data planes.

Also, enterprises can gain additional features in Calico Cloud and Enterprise, which are built on open source Calico, to help address performance hotspots, troubleshoot microservice communication, and do anomaly detection.

“With SUSE’s vision to innovate everywhere and Rancher’s approach toward managing Kubernetes everywhere, Calico accelerates our vision and approach,” said Keith Basil, vice president of product, cloud native infrastructure at SUSE. “Users will benefit from simplified, consistent, networking, security and observability across our Kubernetes platforms with one technology that addresses their needs.”

With Calico, users will be able to configure their RKE2 Kubernetes cluster for both network flow and security policy. Users who also have Calico Cloud and Enterprise subscriptions can also:

• Create, preview, stage, and deploy networking and security policies across hybrid- and multi-clouds.
• Evaluate security policies with real-time metrics across tiers and within individual policy rules.
• Observe point-to-point topographical representation of traffic between namespaces, services, and deployments for faster troubleshooting (Calico Cloud and Enterprise).