CBL-Mariner: Microsoft's internal Linux distribution for Azure first-party services and edge appliances

There's a Linux Systems Group at Microsoft  which has developed a number of products -- some for customers and partners and others for internal use. One of this group's deliverables is an internal Linux distribution for use within Microsoft's cloud infrastructure and edge products and services, which is known as CBL-Mariner. Microsoft has made CBL-Mariner available on GitHub recently.

InfoWorld recently published information about Microsoft's CBL-Mariner (which is where I first heard of this distribution). As InfoWorld noted, even though CBL-Mariner is a public release, it's meant for Microsoft's own use. It's a lightweight Linux distribution that could be part of Microsoft's evolving 5G/edge networking plans in its Azure for Operators unit, as InfoWorld notes. Infoworld adds that in the past, Red Hat's CoreOS used to be the preferred host for Linux containers, but it's recenttly been deprecated, so users need an alternative. By creating its own distribution for its cloud services, Microsoft can update and manage the host and container instances own its own schedule, InfoWorld adds.