Tigera Introduces Powerful Enhancements to Calico Open Source and Calico Cloud to Elevate Security, Scalability and Performance

• Calico Cloud's Security Score and Recommended Actions provide an unparalleled view of security risks, enabling enterprises to identify and mitigate them swiftly.
• Streamlined autoscaling with Windows HostProcess Container support simplifies Kubernetes operations, saving time and resources.
• IPv6 support for eBPF in Calico empowers enterprises to enhance the performance and scalability of their applications, ensuring they meet the demands of modern workloads.
• Enhanced observability with VxLAN for cluster mesh offers a scalable solution for multi-cluster deployments, enhancing visibility and security.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Tigera, provider of the industry's only active security platform for containers and Kubernetes, today announced upgrades to Calico Open Source and Calico Cloud centered around the security, performance, and scalability of Kubernetes deployments for enterprises. Tigera continues to set new industry standards, uniquely empowering organizations to navigate the challenges of containerized environments with confidence.

Maximizing Container Security with Security Score and Recommended Actions

Security is paramount in an era where Kubernetes clusters form the backbone of mission-critical applications. However, common factors like limited cloud-native application security experts, narrow skillsets, and faster release cycles complicate this. To overcome these challenges, Calico Cloud now provides a Security Score and Recommended Actions for cloud-native applications. This gives administrators a quantified, at-a-glance view of their organization's security posture by monitoring historical trends, risks by namespace, and more.

Crucially, the feature also provides actionable recommendations tailored to each workload, strengthening the security of individual workloads and the entire cluster.

Streamlined Operations with Windows HostProcess Container

Given that 45% of respondents from the CNCF 2022 Annual Survey utilize Windows containers in production, the manual node pool bootstrapping used for updates or scaling has proven inefficient and detrimental to application lifecycles. As Windows containers become integral to Kubernetes workflows, streamlined node pool deployment is crucial.

The Calico Open Source Windows HostProcess Container feature addresses operational challenges by enabling automated node pool scaling and upgrades, eliminating the need for manual node initialization. This empowers Kubernetes administrators to streamline operations and focus on the management of Windows container-based applications. Tigera is the first to provide native support for Windows HostProcess Containers, simplifying Kubernetes management for enterprises.

Performance and Scalability with IPv6 Support for Calico eBPF Dataplane

Enterprise-class applications demand scalable, high-performance networking. Calico meets this need with its introduction of IPv6 support for the eBPF dataplane. IPv6 and eBPF alleviate IP shortages and enhance performance, ensuring that latency-sensitive applications perform optimally.

As the leading container networking solution for Kubernetes, Calico's IPv6 support on the eBPF dataplane ensures scalable, high-performance networking and security to address the demands of modern applications across diverse cloud and distributed environments.

Enabling Multi-Cluster Deployments with Cluster Mesh on VxLAN

Multi-cluster Kubernetes deployments over VxLAN are on the rise, driving the need for enhanced application layer observability and security. However, current manual approaches lack scalability.

Calico meets this demand with Kubernetes Cluster Mesh for VxLAN, providing a scalable solution for workload communication and security policy enforcement across Kubernetes clusters over VxLAN. As large and leading-edge enterprises accelerate deployments to enhance their services at scale, they have encountered management challenges that can put their environments at risk. Calico provides an operationally simple solution to create a Kubernetes cluster mesh to ensure enterprise infrastructure can run multi-cluster environments efficiently, securely, and compliantly – no matter the complexity.

Calico provides a centralized multi-cluster management plane to enable security, observability, and networking management across multiple clusters in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Calico brings the same capabilities expected from single cluster environments to those with multiple clusters, enabling Calico to scale to any enterprise's needs.

These Calico innovations set a new benchmark in container networking and security, empowering enterprises to secure, scale, and optimize their Kubernetes clusters like never before.

"Calico is the most widely adopted technology for container networking and security. With capabilities like IPV6 support in Calico eBPF and Calico cluster mesh on VxLAN, we are enabling organizations to run their Kubernetes deployments at unparalleled scale. The new security risk scorecard, prioritization and remediation provide container security teams with a nuanced view of risks and things they need to address," said Amit Gupta, Chief Product Officer, Tigera. "With these latest enhancements to Calico, we're delivering the industry's most complete solution for securing and observing Kubernetes environments."

To get the latest updates on Calico, visit Tigera at KubeCon North America at Booth #G13.

Click here to learn more about Tigera's solutions or request a free trial.

About Tigera
Tigera provides the industry's only active security platform with full-stack observability for containers and Kubernetes. The company's platform prevents, detects, troubleshoots, and automatically mitigates exposure risks of security breaches. Tigera delivers its platform as a fully managed SaaS (Calico Cloud) or a self-managed service (Calico Enterprise). Its open-source offering, Calico Open Source, is the most widely adopted container networking and security solution. Calicospecifies security and observability as code to ensure consistent enforcement of security policies, which enables DevOps, platform, and security teams to protect workloads, detect threats, achieve continuous compliance, and troubleshoot service issues in real time. 

Powering more than 100M containers across 2M+ nodes in 166 countries, Calico is supported across all major cloud providers and Kubernetes distributions and is used by leading companies including AT&T, Discover, Merck, NBCUniversal, HanseMerkur, Allstate, Box, Siemens Healthineers, Playtech, Royal Bank of Canada, and Bell Canada.

Media Contact
Katherine Benfield for Tigera
Lumina Communications
[email protected] 

SOURCE Tigera