Open-source virtualization vendor Docker Inc. today announced the acquisition of privately held developer software firm Koality, in a bid to help build out its enterprise product. Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed.
David Messina, vice president of marketing at Docker, told eWEEK that as part of the deal, all four members of the core Koality engineering team will be joining Docker. Koality builds a continuous integration (CI) technology platform that aims to enable developers to accelerate software testing. The Koality technology will now help Docker build out its own enterprise products.
“The Koality acquisition is about bringing a Docker Hub Enterprise solution to market more quickly,” Messina explained. “The Koality team has built up a skill set and specific technology that is optimized to work well with enterprise application development life cycles that align with the security and compliance requirements of highly regulated industries.”
Docker Inc. is the lead commercial sponsor of the open-source Docker container virtualization project. In September, Docker announced that it has raised $40 million in a Series C round of funding in a bid to help further its market and technology development efforts. One of those efforts is the Docker Hub Enterprise platform.
Docker Hub first debuted alongside the Docker 1.0 release in June, providing users with software development life cycle services. Currently, Docker Hub is available in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, though the company has plans to build out an on-premises enterprise version.
“Docker is acquiring Koality to accelerate our Docker Hub Enterprise initiative, which is based upon the success of the Docker Hub SaaS solution and the demand from large enterprises to have this technology behind the firewall,” Messina said.
Koality’s core product is a CI technology that can help in the development process of new applications. Messina noted that Docker is leveraging aspects of Koality’s technology and the expertise of a great development team, but it will discontinue the Koality CI product itself. Docker Hub Enterprise will have APIs to integrate with an enterprise’s CI technologies.
“The Koality CI product is not what Docker is bringing to market,” Messina said. “There are aspects of the technology tied to simplified workflows related to the management of software versions and seamless integration with other parts of the application development life cycle that are being leveraged.”
The Koality purchase is the second acquisition that Docker has made in 2014. In July, Docker acquired privately held software developer Orchard and its Fig technology.
Messina explained that while the new Koality acquisition is linked to the Docker Hub platform, the Orchard acquisition is about the Docker engine for container virtualization.
“The Orchard acquisition was linked to their Fig, application composition and orchestration tool,” he Messina. “Aspects of this technology will be used within Docker Engine to accelerate the deployment of multicontainer distributed applications.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
