Tigera, creator and maintainer of Calico Open Source, has announced the availability of Calico Container Networking Interface (CNI) for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Microsoft’s managed Kubernetes service. In addition to using Calico’s networking and security policy engine, AKS users will now be able to use Calico Open Source as a CNI for robust, scalable and higher performant networking for their environments with a choice of Windows, eBPF, and Linux data planes.

Calico CNI is a widely-used container networking interface recognized for its performance capabilities, scalability, flexibility, power, efficiency and support for multiple data planes including eBPF, Linux and Windows. Now, users can build zero-trust workload security, access a top-notch runtime threat defense solution, and achieve container security with the foundation of Calico CNI in AKS. Users also have the ability to seamlessly deploy Calico CNAPP for comprehensive protection for their containerized workloads on AKS.

Calico’s rich security policy model makes it easy to restrict communication between endpoints as required. With built-in support for WireGuard encryption, securing pod-to-pod traffic across the network comes with overall lower CPU usage and occupancy and higher performance. Depending on user preference, Calico uses either Windows, eBPF or Linux data plane to deliver high-performance networking.

The release of Calico CNI comes on the heels of Microsoft’s BYO (Bring Your Own) CNI initiative, which allows enterprises to choose their own CNI to address their unique needs. Administrators receive access to full support from Tigera for Calico Open Source, and can deploy Tigera’s Calico Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) for active zero-trust based container security across build, deploy and runtime stages via their Azure Marketplace portal.

Uers can also sign up for a free trial of Calico Cloud on Azure Marketplace.