Kontena has released version 1.0 of its certified Kubernetes distribution, Kontena Pharos. According to the company, it delivers a robust foundation at scale and provides a perfect mix of simplicity, security, and modularity.

“We are heavily focusing on making Kubernetes safe for any environment. For example, we are blocking unauthenticated ports, using TLS authentication wherever possible, rolling certificates and encrypting secrets at rest,” said Jari Kolehmainen, CTO & co-founder of Kontena.

Though it has only been in the market for a short time, over 2,500 Kontena Pharos clusters have already been deployed throughout the world. According to Kontena, the demand for something like Kontena Pharos is so high because there is a need for a cost-effective Kubernetes distribution that works on any infrastructure.

The project is open source and was released under an Apache 2 license, so it can be used for free, even for commercial uses.

“Organizations looking for Kubernetes finally have the option to use a simple, solid and certified distribution that works at any scale on any cloud, bare metal, or virtualization,” said Miska Kaipiainen, CEO & Founder of Kontena. “We wanted to deliver pure Kubernetes, without any vendor specific padding, extras or lock-ins. We wanted to empower organizations to benefit from this technology at any scale. We realized making Kubernetes more accessible was the key, and now looking back on the success with Kontena Pharos, we feel we got it right.”