Kubernetes has been successful for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it takes care of things that application developers may not want to bother with – such as, for example, networking. Multus is a feature that can be used on top of Kubernetes to enable complex networking use cases.

Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud are two exclusive terms that are often confused. While the hybrid cloud represents a model for extending private cloud infrastructure with one of the existing public clouds, a multi-cloud refers to an environment where multiple clouds are used at the same time, regardless of their type. Thus, while the hybrid cloud represents a very specific use case, multi-cloud is a more generic term and usually better reflects reality.

Today Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 in the Windows 10 May 2020 update. WSL 2 is based on a new architecture that provides full Linux binary application compatibility and improved performance. WSL 2 is powered by a real Linux kernel in a lightweight virtual machine that boots in under two seconds. WSL 2 is the best way to experience Ubuntu on WSL.

Ubuntu has supported ZFS as an option for some time. In 19.10, we introduced experimental support on the desktop. As explained, having a ZFS on root option on our desktop was only a first step in what we want to achieve by adopting this combined file system and logical volume manager. I strongly suggest you read the 2 blog posts, linked above, as introductions to this blog series we are starting. Here we cover what’s new compared to 19.10 in term of installation and general features.

Data science has exploded as a practice in the past decade and has become an undisputed driver of innovation. The forcing factors behind the rising interest in Machine Learning, a not so new concept, have consolidated and created an unparalleled capacity for Deep Learning, a subset of Artificial Neural Networks with many “hidden layers”, to thrive in the years to come.

Kubernetes has enjoyed an unparalleled 5-year growth that has revolutionised the IT industry. It has become a key factor for organisations to be successful and have a competitive advantage. In order to optimise these benefits, organisations look for new ways to reduce Kubernetes complexity and get interoperability with other systems. See how combining MicroK8s and WSL 2 brings a low-ops, fully conformant Kubernetes through a single-command install within Windows.

This week, Canonical announced the integration of Charmed Kubernetes with Microsoft Azure Arc. This integration provides businesses with a centralised place to manage their Kubernetes clusters and deploy their applications at scale, from cloud to the edge. The Azure Arc dashboard enables management and governance of any Kubernetes, across any substrate.

Canonical has received FIPS 140-2, Level 1 certification for cryptographic modules in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, with FIPS-validated OpenSSL-1.1.1. modules included. This certification enables organisations to meet compliance requirements within the public sector, healthcare and finance industries when utilising Ubuntu 18.04 LTS within public and private cloud environments. Canonical worked with U.S. Government and BSI accredited laboratory, atsec information security, for the 18.04 LTS FIPS certification.

In Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, the OpenSSL 1.1.1f library has been modified to use Security Level 2 by default (previous versions of Ubuntu use Security Level 1). Security Level 2 guarantees that protocols, key exchange mechanisms, cipher suites, signature algorithms, certificates and key sizes provide a minimum of 112 bits of message secrecy. In practice, it means that RSA keys are required to be at least 2048 bits long and ECC keys at least 224 bits using the SHA256 certificate signature algorithm.

Microsoft Build, Microsoft’s annual developer conference, is taking place virtually May 19-20. Ubuntu will be featured throughout the event, in announcements of new WSL features, demos of cloud-native development on Microsoft Azure, and by presenters using Ubuntu desktop with native Microsoft applications like Teams, Code, and Edge. In an address by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the company announced new features coming to WSL 2.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” This is a famous quote attributed to the Prussian field marshal Helmuth von Moltke. It is also quite applicable to software development: “No code survives contact with the user.” In mission-critical environments, staggered deployments of software are a crucial part of controlled updates, designed to ensure maximum stability of production applications and services.

With the release of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) the Ubuntu Server Guide has received a major set of updates and has moved to a new location on the Ubuntu website. The new location makes it much easier to read and contribute improvements. There is a link on the bottom of each page that points directly to the corresponding Discourse page which contains the source for each page of the Ubuntu Server Guide.

The release of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was April 23, 2020. On the same day, Canonical added full support for Ubuntu Server 20.04 on all of the Raspberry Pis that we certify. Users can flash 20.04 to their Raspberry Pi knowing Canonical guarantees it will ‘just work’ and can make the most out of all of the new features added with 20.04. You can do this from our download page, or from the Official Raspberry Pi Imager tool.

If you have been using computers for some time now, you probably have fond memories of this or that piece of software from the past, an application or a game that was fun, useful and just plain great, but which isn’t available any longer.

The Ubuntu Server Live Installer, introduced with the release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), provides a live Ubuntu Server environment along with a streamlined server installation experience. Building on guided installs for LVM, RAID, encrypted disks and advanced networking configuration (VLANs and bonds) the installer can refresh itself to the latest version during the live session.

It’s no secret that organisations have a love-hate relationship with data. Decision making can be unguided and market insights can be lost when organisations collect too little data. On the other hand, with large and active datasets, where requests number in the hundreds of thousands, maintaining database performance is increasingly difficult. One open source application, Apache Cassandra, enables organisations to process large volumes of fast moving data in a reliable and scalable way.

Outsourcing OpenStack operations can significantly accelerate the OpenStack deployment process. Although most organisations are successful with the initial roll-out of the cloud, many struggle to operate it effectively post-deployment. Under certain circumstances, a fully managed OpenStack can also be a cheaper option than the self-managed one. We have recently published a webinar in which we demonstrated a detailed cost analysis of both options.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) was officially released on April 23. This is the latest Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) release, with security patches and updates available until 2025. If you are currently using an older version of Ubuntu, you may be interested in upgrading. In this tutorial, we will show how to safely upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver), the previous LTS, to the current one.

One of the most exciting security enhancements in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) is the ability to use the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) or Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) devices with SSH. By using a second authentication factor via a device, users can add another layer of security to their infrastructure through a stronger and yet still easy to use mechanism for authentication. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS includes this feature out of the box through the latest version of OpenSSH 8.2.

So, we’ve passed the first quarter of 2020. What have we learned? You don’t need us to tell you that, but robots are still cool As usual, this State of Robotics post discusses work the Ubuntu robotics team has done this past April, and some interesting projects we’ve seen in the community. Unfortunately, we had a total of zero submissions to be included this month, hopefully not a sign of the times.