IBM Corp. today unveiled an experimental new service that brings together two of the most important open-source technologies in the world of cloud application development.

The Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment is based on the platform-as-a-service project of the same name. Cloud Foundry, which powers applications at companies such as Ford Motor Co., has long been available on IBM’s cloud. What makes the new service stand out is integration with another leading open-source tool: Kubernetes.

Kubernetes was created and then open-sourced by Google LLC to automate the management of software containers, which are emerging as an increasingly popular means of deploying cloud applications. They let developers bundle code into a portable package that can be easily moved between different kinds of infrastructure. According to IBM, its new service will allow companies that rely on Cloud Foundry take advantage of the technology’s benefits.

The portability of containers can help software teams roll out code from their development environment to production much faster than traditional methods, thus speeding up projects. Moreover, the technology lends itself well to building applications based on a so-called microservices architecture. This is a development approach that involves deploying software as a set of loosely connected modules, which makes it easier to maintain and update the individual components.

What makes Kubernetes an important part of the picture is that it has quickly become the go-to tool for managing large container deployments. That’s why IBM is not the only organization that has invested in making the technology work well with Cloud Foundry.

The Cloud Foundry Foundation, the industry body overseeing the project, late last year introduced a tool specifically designed to allow for the two projects to be used together. The tool was born from a joint development effort between Google and Pivotal Software Inc., majority-owned by Dell Technologies Inc.

For IBM, the introduction of Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environment marks another milestone on its journey to rekindle sales growth with the help of cloud services. The product announcement comes just a day after the company reported that cloud revenues increased 14 percent in the second quarter to $4.2 billion. That’s certainly respectable, but it’s still well behind the 40 percent-plus growth rate of market leader Amazon Web Services Inc. and even faster growth by Microsoft Corp.’s Azure.

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