WSO2 buys Melbourne start-up Platformer

WSO2's Kanchana Wickremasinghe

Open source API integration company WSO2 has acquired Melbourne-based cloud native application platform start-up Platformer. 

With operations in Australia and Sri Lanka, Platformer allows developers and DevOps teams to deploy and manage their containerised workloads securely and at scale on Kubernetes.  

The technology will play a central role in extending the Kubernetes capabilities of the data plane of WSO2's integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) called Choreo.   

As a result of the acquisition, Platformer co-founder and former CEO Kanchana Wickremasinghe will join WSO2 as vice president and product manager of Choreo Data Plane. 

“In joining WSO2, we have an opportunity to pursue our shared vision of empowering enterprises to leverage cloud native engineering in scaling their digital businesses while fostering greater developer collaboration, speeding release cycles, and maximising the cost efficiency of their cloud native applications,” Wickremasinghe said. 

WSO2 vice president and regional general manager Tass Melissinos added that the local impact of the partnership will further enhance WSO2’s presence in Australia and throughout the region. 

“Kubernetes is the de facto standard for developing and deploying cloud native applications,” WSO2 founder and CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana added. “In adding Platformer’s state-of-the-art technology to our Choreo iPaaS, we are extending our commitment to supporting native Kubernetes for cloud native engineering.  

"We’re now well-positioned to fully capitalise on Kubernetes for cloud orchestration and let customers focus on creating, connecting and protecting their cloud native apps and APIs.” 

The Choreo iPaaS, which is in public beta, enables developers to engineer in low-code and pro-code simultaneously; build, test and deploy in Kubernetes; manage APIs; share them in a marketplace; and observe performance — all within a matter of hours. 

The Platformer console complements Choreo by enhancing its Kubernetes-based deployment capabilities to support multiple regions, multiple cloud providers and private clouds.  

Platformer's technology will also extend Choreo beyond the open-source Ballerina programming language to support the DevOps management of any containerised workload. 

It provides capabilities for centrally managing the development, deployment and monitoring of cloud native applications, accelerating the development cycle and building apps for vendor-neutral Kubernetes in a cloud agnostic way.