Replicated Launches Outdated-An Open-Source Image Version Alert Tool

By CIOReview | Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Replicated releases its open-source image version alert tool, Outdated, to help admins and operators determine if they are running the latest version of container images.

FREMONT, CA : Replicated has released its open-source image version alert tool, known as Outdated, to assist administrators and operators in evaluating whether they're running the most recent versions of container images and maintaining a higher degree of security and compliance. Even though other tools are available in the market that can perform similar tasks, Outdated is the first standardized tool that will automatically alert consumers when they need to install a container image update.

"Instead of just deploying the latest version in a cluster, we determined the best solution is to always pin a specific version so you get reproducible deployments, and then you can decide what you want to do next," said Marc Campbell, CTO at Replicated.

The most convincing reason to use Outdated is improved security, but it was also designed to offer users a simple way to see whether they're running the most recent container images, with output color-coded as green (newest edition), yellow (new version pending), and red (need to update). Even though other apps such as GitHub and Helm have similar warnings, Outdated looks at the images and cluster state and informs users of outdated versions.

"At a high level, Outdated is a binary that runs on your workstation and interrogates the Kubernetes cluster, finds all the container images that are running with tags, and goes out to the associated container registries and finds the newer versions," Campbell explained. "We created Outdated because an important step in keeping a Kubernetes or application cluster secure is to keep the latest version running at all times. This tool makes it really simple."

Replicated hopes that by launching Outdated as a completely open-source project, it can bring the purpose-built tool to a community that will understand its value and foster community through reviews, use cases, and contributions, similar to what it has done with SchemaHero, which is now in the CNCF sandbox, and Troubleshoot.