Containerization and microservices architecture have become foundational in modern software development and operations. Gartner predicts that by 2026, over 90% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production, up from less than 40% in 2021. This shift brings both opportunities and complexity for enterprise IT.
As organizations turn to Kubernetes for container orchestration, they often face challenges such as steep learning curves and operational overhead. This is where Rancher Multi-Cluster Manager (MCM) — a certified enterprise Kubernetes container management platform that combines powerful capabilities with operational simplicity — comes in as a pioneering solution.
Rancher MCM stands out in the crowded container management space by offering a combination of features that simplify operations from initial deployment through to day-to-day management. This solution is capable of helping government and military organizations maximize the benefits of Kubernetes containerization.
Rancher MCM prioritizes quick and easy installation across any certified Kubernetes distribution. With just a CNCF-compliant Kubernetes cluster and Helm, you can deploy Rancher MCM in minutes. Its intuitive UI enables teams to start operating their clusters immediately, minimizing the learning curve and accelerating time-to-value.
Rancher MCM’s logical UI and developer-friendly features simplify ongoing cluster operations and management. The platform is agnostic, running seamlessly across major public cloud distributions. Rancher MCM’s API extends its capabilities to where developers need them, facilitating integration into CI/CD pipelines. Rancher’s Fleet project also incorporates GitOps workflows at scale, handling up to 1 million clusters in production.
Rancher MCM offers best-in-class support for multi-cluster management across edge, public cloud bare metal, OpenStack, and vSphere environments. It allows full lifecycle management across all major public cloud-managed services and CNCF-conformant Kubernetes distribution, including EKS, AKS, GKE, RKE2, and K3s.
Rancher MCM seamlessly manages containerized applications across diverse environments, from public cloud to on-prem infrastructure and edge locations. With Rancher, you have a single control plane to oversee and orchestrate your entire container ecosystem, regardless of where your workloads are running.
Rancher MCM provides a centralized app catalog, ensuring standardized, easy-to-deploy tools and services for developers. This minimizes tool sprawl and integration issues while offering reliable, reusable patterns across your IT estate. Features include a central application catalog, built-in provisioning with configuration management tools, standardized monitoring and logging, integrations with leading CI/CD tools, and integrated service mesh support.
For government agencies and security-conscious organizations, RGS offers secure-by-default Rancher Government Carbide™, which integrates seamlessly with Rancher MCM. This proprietary solution helps meet and exceed federal security requirements, featuring trusted software origins, vulnerability management, digital assurance, centralized, secure hosting, robust verification, and policy-driven enforcement.
Rancher MCM ships with basic monitoring enabled by default and offers easy activation of advanced monitoring. With a single click, admins can deploy Prometheus and Grafana for advanced capabilities. Both basic and advanced monitoring include alerts for critical cluster components, supporting various notification channels.
Rancher Multi-Cluster Manager (MCM) delivers the power of Kubernetes with minimal complexity and rapid time-to-value. It simplifies multi-cluster deployments from initial setup to long-term management, ensuring performance, reliability, and security. Working anywhere — from cloud to bare metal to edge — with virtually any Kubernetes distributions, RGS evolves alongside your organization’s needs.
Rancher Government Solutions offers additional customizable services to complement Rancher MCM:
For more information about how Rancher MCM can improve your container management strategy, checkout our additional resources below and schedule a demo with our team: