Loft Labs, a venture-backed startup working on developer tooling and multi-tenancy solutions for Kubernetes, has announced the release of a Cluster API provider for the popular open-source vcluster technology. Now, deploying virtual clusters can be done exactly the same as deploying physical Kubernetes clusters on a cloud platform or on-premises data center.

In addition to Loft Labs, the Cluster API project has received technical contributions from a wide range of companies including VMware, Microsoft, Weaveworks, Google, Mattermost, IBM, RedHat, D2iQ, Equinix, Apple, Talos Systems, Spectro Cloud, Daimler TSS, Ericsson, Giant Swarm, AppsCode, Intel, Twilio, New Relic, Amazon, and many more.

The vcluster open source software is growing quickly with more than 3 million downloads and over 1,500 stars on GitHub in less than a year after its initial release. First launched in April 2021, vcluster is used to create lightweight Kubernetes clusters that run inside the namespaces of underlying Kubernetes clusters.

Using virtual clusters solves the majority of multi-tenancy issues of Kubernetes because they offer better isolation than simple namespace-based multi-tenancy as well as reduced cloud computing cost because virtual clusters are much more lightweight and resource-efficient than spinning up separate single-tenant clusters.