Nirmata Enterprise for Kyverno

Nirmata Enterprise for Kyverno (N4K) is the enterprise-grade distribution of the popular Kubernetes Native Policy Management engine, Kyverno. N4K provides long-term support and is designed to save time and costs for production users.

With N4K, cluster administrators can manage environment-specific configurations independent of workload configurations. This helps to enforce security best practices and allows managing of policies as code with popular and familiar tools like git and kustomize.

N4K Components:

• Nirmata’s Distribution of Kyverno
  
• Nirmata Kyverno Adapters (optional)
  
• Provider Integrations (optional)
  

Note: The optional components will not be deployed by default.

How N4K is different from OSS Kyverno?

While Nirmata Enterprise for Kyverno (N4K) and Kyverno OSS share feature parity, the distinction becomes apparent when considering the advantages of N4K in a production setting.

Kyverno OSS

Kyverno is a free and open-source project created by Nirmata, and donated to CNCF in 2020. It is an incubating project under the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation), and anyone is free to download, use, and modify it as needed. It provides the core features for writing and managing Kubernetes policies that can validate, mutate, and generate any resource configuration, including verification of container images. It has strong community support and therefore, gets active contributions in terms of feature development, bug fixes, and documentation updates. It is suitable for small teams and individuals who are capable of managing their own Kyverno deployments and do not need additional SLAs or support going forward. More about Kyverno can be found here.

Nirmata Enterprise for Kyverno

Nirmata Enterprise for Kyverno or N4K is the enterprise-grade distribution of Kyverno. The below features make N4K a suitable choice for organizations dealing with large scale Kubernetes deployments:

• 24*7 enterprise support - The 24x7 enterprise support provided by Nirmata guarantees compatibility with a wide range of Kubernetes versions and assists with critical bug fixes. It also brings better SLAs (Service Level Agreements) for fixing CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) helping users avoid issues that can impact their environments.
• Long-term support - N4K provides long-term support that benefits organizations that are weary of getting frequent updates. It implies that you will get support for a given Kyverno release for up to a year, while in the open-source version, it is supported only up to n-2 releases. In addition, N4K supports a wider range of Kubernetes versions compared to OSS Kyverno, meaning that a given N4K release has been tested with all the stable K8s versions. Check out the Release Compatibility Matrix for more information.
• Prioritized feature requests - Nirmata is an open-source first company. We aim to collaborate in the open and all features are built in the community and are part of the Kyverno project. Having said that, our N4K customers enjoy the benefits of custom-built solutions for their unique feature requests. If the feature is generic enough, we will work with the community to get your feature request in!
• Curated policy sets - There are pre-built policies (300+) that cover the common security concerns and improves the overall security posture of the Kubernetes clusters.
• Adapters for enterprise intergration - Optionally, with N4K, adapters are used to extend the capabilities of Kyverno that help in enforcing of complex and sophisticated policies. Check out the adapters here.
• Training and support - With the enterprise version, there will be continued training and support. Quarterly training sessions along with assessments will help teams get a better understanding of the product. Furthermore, there is assistance on the upgradation of N4K versions and organizing custom policy workshops tailored to your needs.

Pricing information for N4K

Sign up for the N4K 15-day free trial here or contact Nirmata Customer Support to purchase the enterprise edition.