Canonical Introduces Transactional Updates with Ubuntu Core, Snappy

A new flavor has joined Canonical's Ubuntu Linux family in the form of Ubuntu Core. Tailored for the cloud, the open source operating system provides a new way for developers to deploy and update applications through Snappy, a transactional-update platform.

As a new, official Ubuntu flavor, Ubuntu Core is built on the same Linux-based foundation as the other variants of Canonical's open source operating systems. But what makes the new platform different is that, in conjunction with Snappy, it presents "a whole new way of doing packaging and updates," said Dustin Kirkland, Cloud Solutions Product Manager at Canonical.

And while packaging and updates may not sound too exciting to end users, Canonical envisions Snappy appealing strongly to developers. The command line tool is "a more developer-friendly packaging system," Kirkland said, than apt, the venerable packaging tool upon which Ubuntu and most other Debian-based Linux distributions have traditionally relied. In contrast to apt, Snappy uses transactional updates, which make it possible to deliver and update disparate, portable applications rapidly—as well as to roll them back quickly if necessary.

"Snap packages are really just simple archives," Kirkland said. "They're zip files that have everything an application needs to run." And in that way, they're consonant with the rising enthusiasm around Docker and other container-based virtualization solutions—although Kirkland emphasized that Snappy is not a platform to compete with Docker, but, on the contrary, is a part of a new, cloud-oriented OS that makes deploying Docker and other apps easier.

Security is also a key part of Canonical's pitch surrounding Snappy and Ubuntu Core. The offering provides "bullet-proof security," the company noted, by isolating apps and integrating with Ubuntu's AppArmor kernel-hardening system.

In a lot of ways, Ubuntu Core and Snappy are Canonical's answer to CoreOS and Red Hat's Project Atomic, which serve similar goals. But Canonical's offering brings this type of platform to the Ubuntu ecosystem in a native, integrated way, while heavily emphasizing security—characteristics Canonical hopes will induce more developers to try a new way of deploying their apps on Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Core is available now for download, and is available in the Microsoft Azure cloud as well. It will appear on other major public clouds within the coming weeks, Kirkland said.