Kubernetes APIs are already a valuable asset in many scientific endeavours, enabling workflows across a wide range of environments thanks to the flexibility of its declarative primitives. Therefore if one could keep using the same APIs while getting a transparent access to any number of external hardware-accelerated machines, that would represent a real game changer.
That is exactly what interLink project is about: an open source extension of the concept of Virtual-Kubelet, developed by INFN (the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics) in the context of interTwin, an EU funded project that aims to build a digital-twin platform for sciences and beyond. We will walk through the first phases of the prototype and the early use cases of a Kubernetes-based computing platform capable of extending its computational capabilities over heterogeneous providers: simple remote host, SLURM batch systems at world-class HPC centers, and serverless frameworks.