Today, we are happy to announce that IBM and VMware have agreed to provide the Bitnami Application Catalog to IBM Cloud users. 

The first delivery of the Bitnami Application Catalog is the import of the Bitnami Helm chart repository. Effective immediately, IBM Cloud Catalog users will see a new provider—Bitnami—in the filter boxes. Checking this off filters the catalog to show you the more than 50 open source Helm charts that Bitnami curates and validates as working on the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.

The combination of IBM Cloud and the Bitnami Application Catalog gives you the following:

• Curated versions of the best open source software, available via the ease of Helm carts
• Lifecycle test and validation so that you’re confident they run every time
• Portable and consistent operations on all the clouds you need

In the recent months, we’ve started to onboard “software” into the IBM Cloud Catalog in the form of pre-built IBM Cloud Schematics templates and the five initial IBM Cloud Paks. New filtering and search capabilities within the catalog let users easily identify the managed services and software content they need to create cloud native and hybrid applications. As the saying goes, “Content is King,” and in the coming months, we plan to onboard more and more IBM, Red Hat, and third-party software in the form of solution templates; VM images for VMware, Classic, and NextGen IaaS; reference architectures, and more.

What is a Helm chart?

Helm charts help you define, install, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes application. Helm itself is a tool that manages the services running in your Kubernetes cluster. The charts are a collection of files that describe a related set of Kubernetes resources. A single chart might be used to deploy something simple, like a memcached pod, or something complex, like a full web app stack with HTTP servers, databases, caches, and so on. (Source.)

Deploying a Helm chart from the IBM Cloud Catalog

Kubernetes developers typically install Helm charts manually from the CLI using the helm command. We’ve simplified the process by building an auto-install feature right into the IBM Cloud Catalog.  Deploying a chart is as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Search the IBM Cloud Catalog for the software you are looking for. Helm charts are available for most popular open source projects. The Bitnami Application Catalog curates the most popular charts and verifies that they run malware-free on IBM Cloud’s managed Kubernetes service. 
2. Select the Helm chart you want to deploy. You can review it’s README documentation and edit the default parameters used to install the chart.
3. Select the Kubernetes cluster and namespace you want to deploy and click Install.

That’s it! We will automatically create an IBM Cloud Schematics workspace in your account with a template that deploys the chart and helps you manage the chart’s lifecycle. From your Schematics workspace, you get notifications when a new version of the chart appears. You can choose to update charts and delete them right from Schematics.

Bitnami Application Catalog

Bitnami’s Helm charts are just the beginning. The Bitnami Application Catalog also hosts virtual machine images, Terraform templates, and VMware vSphere/vRealize templates. We are actively working to bring these into the IBM Cloud Catalog with the same easy user experience and lifecycle management capabilities through IBM Cloud Schematics. 

Get started today and deploy your first Helm Chart into your IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service cluster. Go to the IBM Cloud Catalog, filter on Bitnami, and give it a try.