Computing infrastructure today is splitting up and floating adrift like ice floes on the Arctic Ocean. Companies see the benefits of on-premises data centers, cloud and containers (a virtualized method for running distributed applications), but struggle to manage all three. Is there a single thread that can string them all together?

Hortonworks Inc. has been hard at work plying its open-source data-management skills in this area, according to its co-founder and chief product officer, Arun Murthy (pictured).

“We have an opportunity to provide identical consistent architectures both on-prem and in cloud,” he said. 

Murthy spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during theCUBE NYC event in New York. They discussed Hortonworks’ work with partners to enable consistency across on-prem data centers, cloud and containers. (* Disclosure below.)

Containing container sprawl

Hortonworks’ DataPlane portfolio of data applications allows users to manage, secure and govern data across multiple environments. This is particularly helpful to the many businesses who lack deep knowledge about securing data in the cloud.

“I don’t think there’s anything inherently insecure about the cloud; the issue that we see is lack of skills,” Murthy said.

DataPlane offers consistent security and governance across on-prem and cloud infrastructure. “So you don’t have to worry about how you set up [identity and access management] roles on Amazon versus [data loss prevention] on-prem, versus something else in Google,” Murthy stated.

Hortonworks’ cousin in open-source success, Red Hat Inc., along with IBM Corp., are pooling their tech and talent to further hybrid management. The trio has announced the Open Hybrid Architecture Initiative. Through decoupling storage and compute and leveraging containers, it aims to bring cloud architecture on-prem for the enterprise.

Red Hat is a valuable player on the team thanks to its investment in the Kubernetes and OpenShift container platforms, which mix well with DataPlane.

“Containerizing every one of the 28 animals, 30 animals in the zoo, that’s a lot work,” Murthy said. “You need to have a consistent fabric to be able to manage it, which is really where DataPlane comes in.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of theCUBE NYC event. (* Disclosure: Hortonworks Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither  Hortonworks nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE