Docker Turns 5: A Look at How the Technology Popularized Containers

In March 2013, Solomon Hykes introduced the world to a new generation of Linux containers that he dubbed Docker. Over the last five years, Docker as a technology and as a company has remade both itself and the software industry. According to Docker, there are more than 3.5 million applications that have been “Dockerized,” or converted into container applications. Container applications are being broadly used as well, with over 37 billion downloads of containers over the last five years. As a technology platform, Docker has transformed from a single effort in 2013 to a broad set of projects and open-source efforts in 2018. In this slide show, eWEEK provides eight quick facts about Docker in celebration of its fifth birthday.

In March 2013, Solomon Hykes launched the Docker project while running his platform-as-a-service (PaaS) company dotCloud. Docker became popular quickly, and dotCloud rebranded itself as Docker Inc. that October. In August 2014, Docker Inc. sold off the last remnants of its dotCloud business to German PaaS vendor cloudControl.

Docker 1.0, the first stable version of the container technology, debuted in June 2014. Alongside Docker 1.0 was the debut of commercial enterprise support and the Docker Hub repository for Dockerized container applications.

Docker use has grown since the project’s creation and the 1.0 release, with Docker now a widely deployed technology. According to Docker Inc., there are approximately 3.5 million Dockerized container applications and, in total, there have been 37 billion container downloads by individuals and companies.

Helping to lead the business direction of Docker Inc. is Steve Singh, who became CEO of the company in May 2017. Singh replaced Ben Golub, who had been CEO from April 2013 until May 2017.

As an open-source effort, Docker is not a single project but rather a group of related efforts that are put together as part of the Moby Project, which was announced in April 2017.

At the core of Docker-based container platforms is the open-source containerd runtime. Containerd is a project created by Docker Inc. and currently hosted at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

Running multiple containers requires an orchestration and clustering system, which is what Docker Inc. has been providing with its Swarm technology. In October 2017, Docker Inc. announced that it would also begin supporting rival Kubernetes container orchestration, which has become increasingly popular in recent years.

Docker Inc. is planning on celebrating Docker’s fifth birthday at its San Francisco headquarters on March 22. In addition, more than 65 other events worldwide will further celebrate Docker’s birthday.