Portainer allows users to manage multiple clusters simultaneously from a single instance of Portainer – regardless of the orchestrator being used.
For Docker / Docker Swarm
Portainer allows for the management of standalone Docker Hosts (Windows/Linux) and Docker Swarm clusters (Windows/Linux). Administrators can connect to Docker environments either directly via the Docker API or using the secure Portainer Agent which delivers a richer management experience.
Using Portainer, authorized users can rapidly visualize the current state of all cluster nodes and can interact with each node of the cluster to update its availability status should maintenance be required.
For Kubernetes
Portainer allows for the management of Kubernetes Clusters through the secure Portainer Agent. Administrators can define which Kubernetes capabilities to expose to users, including persistent storage, metrics, ingress, load balancers.
Portainer supports ANY Kubernetes certified distribution, regardless if its deployed on-premises (self-hosted), or provided from a Cloud provider as a managed Kubernetes service.
For other environments including Edge and Serverless
For environments that are remote to Portainer, either connected over an insecure network, or simply over unreliable links, the Portainer Edge Agent fits the bill. The edge agent reverses the communication channels, so that there is no need for a direct connection from Portainer to the remote endpoint, rather there just needs to be network connectivity from the remote endpoint back into Portainer. The edge agent takes care of establishing a secure tunnel that allows interactive administration. In addition, the Portainer specific edge-compute features allow for the administrator to set applications to deploy on edge endpoints, and these are instructions are placed into a queue, which the edge endpoint can process when possible (async).
For environments where no management of the underlying container platform is desired, Portainer provides connectivity and support for Azure Container Instances (ACI). ACI containers are run on Azure, and removes any need for the end-user to deploy or maintain a Docker or Kubernetes cluster. Portainer support for ACI is still early, but remains a quick and easy way to deploy containers of this manner.
