Mirantis announced the first major release of Mirantis Container Runtime (MCR) in two years in concert with a reinvigorated Moby project, the open source container framework. This release includes new features, improvements, bug fixes, and security updates that aim to make MCR more reliable, efficient, and secure.

"This release is the culmination of two years of work to not only advance the technology, but to work together with our friends both at Docker Inc. and in the wider open source community to support the ongoing health and independence of the Moby project," said Bjorn Neergaard, senior software engineer - containers, Mirantis.

Moby is the upstream open source project of Mirantis Container Runtime, as well as Docker and Docker Engine, plus other open source projects. With MCR 23.0, Mirantis is matching upstream version numbers of the Moby project so users are able to switch between the community open source Moby software and the supported, enterprise-grade Mirantis Container Runtime. Mirantis Container Runtime (MCR) provides a lightweight, secure, and highly-available platform for running containerized applications that is consistent with the Moby project and designed to be compatible with most Docker-compatible container development and workflow tools, platforms, and services.

MCR 23.0 and Moby introduce experimental support - intended only for development purposes at this point - for Container Storage Interface (CSI) drivers in Swarm, making it easier to manage storage resources across container orchestration platforms. CSI drivers are the same storage drivers that Kubernetes uses, enabling developers to take advantage of the same storage plugins supported by Kubernetes.

As the CSI-compliant implementation in Swarm matures, it is expected that an entire ecosystem of persistent storage backends will become available. Mirantis is working actively with the Moby development community to mature its implementation, addressing any bugs and missing features as those become apparent.

MCR 23.0 also adds support for Oracle Linux 8, RHEL 9, and Windows Server 2022.

By leveraging the power of Moby and adding valuable features and hardening, MCR simplifies the process of managing containerized applications and infrastructure, while also improving their overall performance and security. Freeing developers from the burden of managing infrastructure, MCR and Moby enable them to focus on creating their most valuable code and help to accelerate development cycles, reduce costs, and improve the overall quality of applications.