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Hewlett Packard Enterprise will begin bundling Docker’s container technology in its various server portfolios as part of a broad partnership between the two companies.
At the tech vendor’s Discover 2016 show this week in Las Vegas, HPE officials unveiled the work the company will do with Docker, from engineering and services to sales, marketing and support. However, central to the partnership is what the companies are calling HPE’s Docker ready server program, under which the vendor’s systems—from its mainstream ProLiant servers to its Apollo high-performance computing (HPC) systems and its low-cost Cloudline servers—will come bundled with the Docker Engine and accompanying support.
The two also will make HPE’s converged and composable systems—including Synergy, BladeSystem and Converged System—container-ready, to make it possible for customers to more easily deploy Docker’s technology in hyperconverged environments, according to the announcement.
“This collaboration helps businesses transform and modernize their data centers to benefit from a more agile development environment,” Bradley Wong, director of product marketing for Docker, wrote in a post on the company blog. “With new Docker-ready HPE servers, IT organizations have the ability to easily move from test/dev to production and achieve a highly available, secure environment at enterprise scale for Dockerized applications that work with HPE’s extensive enterprise management tools.”
The companies “wanted to address was to enable customers get from zero to Docker as quickly and easily as possible. Many businesses still own and maintain physical data centers that host any number of applications and data. For these organizations, server provisioning and configuration time is tantamount to business agility,” Wong wrote.
All of HPE’s x86 systems have been tested and validated with Docker’s technology, and HPE will support the systems.
In addition, HPE and Docker will partner on go-to-market efforts around Docker Datacenter, an integrated application platform that includes open-source and commercial software. The companies will work together on joint sales and support programs for Docker Datacenter for both HPE customers and channel partners, officials said. HPE also will offer services for Docker containers around technology assessments, design and implementation, and will be the single source of enterprise-grade support for systems running the container technology.
Reference architectures also will be an important point in the agreement. HPE will offer reference configurations for Docker Datacenter on its Hyper Converged 380 and Converged Architecture 700, all meant to make it easier and quicker for customers to adopt and deploy the containers on HPE infrastructure. The reference architectures will touch on everything from how to use HPE’s SiteScope and AppDefender technologies to make the environments more secure to adopting private clouds and Docker environments, enabling enterprises to begin with a small proof-of-concept and scaling up as needed.
The partnership also covers a range of other areas, including a new Docker-integrated plugin for HPE’s 3Par StoreServ all-flash arrays and Docker container support integrated in HPE’s Distributed Cloud Networking solution, SiteScope monitoring software and OneView management platform.
The Docker-ready HPE servers are scheduled to be available in the fourth quarter, while the Docker-integrated offerings that touch on storage, networking and software are available immediately.