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Docker Inc. today announced the general availability of the latest iteration of its commercially supported flagship platform with Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) 17.06. The Docker EE 17.06 release is the first since March, when Docker EE debuted.
Docker EE is a rebranding and repositioning of Docker’s commercial platform, providing what had previously been known as Docker Commercially Supported (CS) edition as well as the Docker Datacenter platform. Docker’s release model also changed in March, with a monthly Community Edition (CE) release that provides a rapid iteration of features that are then rolled up and stabilized inside of the Enterprise Edition (EE) releases.
The new Docker EE 17.06 release is based on Docker CE 17.06 and also includes several EE-specific developments in what used to be known as Docker Datacenter, which provides a private registry and management interface into Docker.
“The approach of having monthly CE edge releases for developers has worked out well as they are getting innovations as they happen,” Jenny Fong, Director of Product Marketing at Docker, told eWEEK. “For enterprise customers, they like Docker EE because it gives them a stable release with a year of support for that release.
Fong added that Docker EE also provides enterprise customers with one common release that covers all the Docker components in one integrated platform backed by certification.
Among the new capabilities in Docker EE 17.06 is support for the IBM Z mainframe. Docker EE already support Linux and Window systems, enabling enterprise to support heterogenous operating system environments. Fong noted that the IBM Z support was developed in collaboration with IBM.
“IBM and Docker are seeing traction in this area as even legacy mainframe applications can benefit from Dockerization,” Fong said. “Without having to re-write code or change operational models; they can immediately get security benefits and much faster application delivery cycles and do it on the same platform that is handling Linux apps and Windows Server applications.”
Security
Docker EE 17.06 also provides enterprises with enhanced secure multi-tenancy capabilities that go beyond what Docker had previously provided. Fong said that previously, standard Role Based Access Controls (RBAC) were available and are now being enhanced with more granular controls down to the API operation level.
“RBAC for Nodes adds a new level of isolation where users and teams can be granted rights to only specific nodes in a cluster and not be able to see any other nodes,” Fong said.
Additionally Fong said that there is now a new taxonomy for granting rights to resource collections that include containers, services, networks, and volumes.
Policy based automation capabilities that had been part of the Docker Datacenter platform are being enhanced in Docker EE 17.06 in multiple ways as well. A core element of Docker Datacenter is the Docker Trusted Registry component where organization can securely store and deploy application container images.
“Specifically, image promotion and immutable repositories are a part of Docker Trusted Registry,” Fong said. “This release of Docker Trusted Registry also includes a new Webhooks UI for integration to external tools. ”
Looking forward, Docker EE will continue to benefit in future releases from features that first land in the Docker CE updates, but that’s not all that is coming.
“You will see more rounding out of features that we announced in the previous CE release and expect some forward looking capabilities that we will be delivering over the course of the next several months in collaboration with some of our major partners,” Fong said.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.