One of the key features in the Napptive Playground is the Catalog. The Catalog enables you to rapidly deploy a set of predefined applications into your cluster with the ability to upload your own.  When we talk about managing applications, this usually involves taking into consideration how we plan to distribute them,  and in the Kubernetes ecosystem we are used to either rendering our YAML files with a tool such as kustomize and distributing those through a selected channel (e.g., storing them in a repository), or using tools such as Helm and defining our applications as charts. 

The former approach requires us as developers to define the intermediate tooling to upload, download, and deploy the applications from the selected repository while maintaining a low complexity from the point of view of maintaining the core YAML files. The latter approach increases the complexity of the maintenance a notch, since creating a chart is not a straightforward task, and also requires preparing a repository compatible with Helm.

With respect to discovery and reusability, both approaches have downsides related to how an application is defined, what is the effect of deploying a template (i.e., which entities are expected to be generated), and how we can share and compose complex applications reusing existing components. On the other hand, if we focus on a single container, we are quite used to how docker hub, or how any other registry (e.g., Google Container Registry) works. The ease by which we are able to upload, download, update and remove containers makes it quite convenient for both users and automation steps.

The Napptive Catalog is highly inspired by the way container registries work in such a way that we offer the same experience you get for single containers but for complete applications. Think of this as another step forward in the gitops movement

For more information about the catalog and how to use it:

• The application catalog: Our vision about how an application catalog should look like, what it is for, and its internal structure.
• Using the catalog: Learn how you can use the catalog to deploy a set of predefined applications or upload your own.

If you want to propel your development, why not try our playground? It’s free, simply sign up and get started!