Upbound and VMware Tanzu Application Platform Partner to Deliver a Completely Satisfying Developer Experience

Upbound, creator of Crossplane, is now a certified VMware Tanzu Application Platform partner

The developer experience can mean a lot of things. To level-set and simplify, let's go with the notion that it is all of the feelings software developers have while producing and publishing their code. Mostly, it measures their level of aggravation during the process. In other words, how many interruptions in their work flow they have to endure. In today's environment, where there is the desire to move fast and securely, the developer experience is usually disappointing.

Today, Upbound and VMware are working together for the better and celebrating a new partnership for the benefit of the Crossplane community and enterprise users. Let's see how Upbound and VMware are teaming up to build a completely satisfying developer experience.

About Upbound & UXP

Upbound is the company behind open-source CNCF Crossplane. Crossplane utilizes the Kubernetes resource model to expose reusable APIs to build cloud services. Essentially, it is a framework to create control planes to deliver a standardized experience to consume cloud services. Universal Crossplane (UXP), is Upbound's fully tested and supported version of OSS Crossplane.

About VMware Tanzu Application Platform

VMware Tanzu Application Platform is an end-to-end integrated platform solution that enables companies to build and deploy more software, more quickly and securely, through a rich set of developer tooling and a pre-paved path to production. Teams can build golden paths to production from the first lines of code, to delivery, to production. VMware Tanzu Application Platform is modular and flexible, with the ability to plug in multiple solutions into your organization’s custom golden paths.

Before Tanzu Application Platform Met UXP

Individually, UXP and Tanzu Application Platform help improve the developer experience. UXP provides APIs to build standardized cloud services and Tanzu Application Platform enables all the appropriate tools to build and ship software to be plugged in. However, until now, there was still aggravation when a developer needed to build a supporting service to test or deliver their code. Not only did they need to know how to build their services, they also needed to know the approved ways and how to connect the services to their application. Unfortunately, this aggravation was what caused a lot of ad-hoc creation of services leading to cloud sprawl—an increase in potential security holes and a decrease in overall quality.

The Integrated Experience

Today VMware has added Upbound as a Tanzu Application Platform partner. With UXP and the release of Tanzu Application Platform 1.5, developers can now utilize the UXP powered APIs within their existing workflow with no additional headaches. Cloud services can be automatically provisioned and connected to their code in a platform-team approved way automatically! Current UXP or Crossplane users will be able to utilize any CompositeResourceDefinition (XRD) created by UXP in Tanzu Application Platform workflows.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Upbound and build on the innovation provided by Crossplane as we continue to meet customers where they are in their platform journey. VMware Tanzu Application Platform and Upbound can support Platform Engineering and Application Development teams with a seamless experience to provision and connect to the data services they need. Together, we’re able to help customers embrace the OSS tools and cloud services of their choice, while providing enterprise support and security best practices," Samuel des Baux, Director Tanzu Application Platform – Cloud and Services, VMware.

Currently, in order to use both UXP and Tanzu Application Platform together, they must be installed and managed on the same Kubernetes cluster. However, with the release of Upbound and managed control planes, Tanzu Application Platform will be able to consume APIs available on Upbound.

What’s Next?

To find out more about the UXP integration with Tanzu Application Platform check out this joint webinar, "Achieve a Fully Automated DevOps Experience with Universal Crossplane and VMware Tanzu Application Platform" or learn more in the tech docs.

If you’re curious about Upbound and what we can offer, try our latest product offering, Upbound, for free. Enable SRE teams with a more efficient workflow and the building blocks of platform engineering by setting up your first cloud platform powered by Upbound’s managed control planes. Sign up for your 30 day free trial here!