Apptainer CIQ Solution Brief
Apptainer securely executes applications with bare-metal performance while being portable and reproducable.
Containers for HPC with Full Software Supply Chain Security
Apptainer is the 100% open source, secure, performant application container system which began life as “Singularity.” It’s a container system that’s designed to be used by non-priveged users on a shared system. From small laboratory clusters all the way to massively-scalable HPC clusters, Apptainer provides:
Market-leading Containers for HPC
Apptainer runs on a majority of HPC systems worldwide and facilitates new and innovative HPC use cases.
100% Open Source
Apptainer is maintained by the Linux Foundation and has broad community and institutional support. All development activities, goals, and milestones are open.
Performance
Rocky is optimized for performance across a wide range of CPU architectures. With the mainline Linux kernel option, users can benefit from up to 10% higher performance per node.
Trust
Apptainer enables trust in your software supply chain via cryptographic key validation and encryption.
Portable Jobs and Environments
Apptainer allows you to bring your enviroments anywhere, creating extreme portability from system to system.
Optimized for Applications
While many container systems are built, designed, and optimized for microservices, Apptainer is for applications and computational use cases.
Apptainer: Community & Market
Apptainer is used in small laboratory clusters all the way to massively-scalable HPC clusters. The Singularity founder and leading developers are all part of CIQ, and we provide enhanced capabilities to customers and partners.
Apptainer: Enhancements & Solutions
- Smaller attack surface for production deployments
- Fully rootless container runtime
- Single file SIF container format makes it easy to transport and share
- Cryptographic key validation and encryption
CIQ Support
Support and services for Apptainer are available from CIQ. Not only did our CEO, Gregory Kurtzer, create the Apptainer project, but also we employ experts who can help you tackle the most challenging Apptainer deployments. The first person you talk with will stay with you through resolution. We don’t route you to a call center or Level 1 support technician who doesn’t have the knowledge to solve your issue.
| CIQ Support Offerings | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Hours of Coverage | Standard Business Day8am - 6pm in your local | |
| timezone3 | 24x7 FTS Support1 | |
| Support Channels | Web & Email | Web & Email Named Customer Success |
| Manager Slack Access to CSM2 |
| Response Times | Initial and Ongoing Response | Initial and Ongoing Response |
|---|---|---|
| Severity 1 (Urgent) | 1 business hour | Initial Response: 30 minutes Ongoing Response: 1 hour or as agreed |
| Severity 2 (High) | 4 business hours | 2 hours or as agreed |
| Severity 3 (Normal) | 1 business day | 4 business hours or as agreed |
| Severity 4 (Low) | 2 business days | 1 business days or as agreed |
- 24x7 "Follow the Sun" (FTS) Support for Severity 1 Issues. Otherwise,
standard SLA's apply. 2. Reserved for Enterprise customers with defined spend agreement. 3. See Terms & Conditions and the MSA.
CIQ, Open Source to the Core
Open source software is not a company asset or gimmick; rather, it is a community-first development and collaboration model. We encourage our customers to engage with the community directly to learn first-hand about the many advantages of Apptainer.
Our goal is to add value on top of Apptainer and other key open source technologies in the form of escalation support, customization, optimization, integration, and professional services.