Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Virtualization

    Docker at 4: The Container Revolution Continues

    By
    Sean Michael Kerner
    -
    March 21, 2017
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      Docker containers

      The open-source Docker container project held events around the globe last week as it celebrated its fourth birthday. Docker is more popular than ever as the standard bearer for the container microservices DevOps movement, though Docker Inc. as a company now faces more challenges than ever before as well.

      Three years ago, I wrote about the first anniversary of Docker, predicting significant growth in 2014. As it turned out, I was right about the growth, though I was wrong about Docker Inc. Back in 2014, I had predicted that Docker Inc. would likely be acquired, but to date that hasn’t happened—though there has been no shortage of speculation over the last three years.

      Docker Inc. and the open-source container ecosystem that Docker helped create have evolved significantly since 2014, and over the course of the project’s four-year existence. This past year has arguably been the most significant yet for Docker Inc., both as a business and an open-source project.

      On the business front, Docker Inc. now has more partnerships and integrations than ever before. The very first time I heard of Docker was in September 2013, when I first met Docker founder Solomon Hykes at the Linuxcon New Orleans event. At the time, few had heard of the nascent Docker technology, but Red Hat’s Fedora Linux community was already working to support it.

      Now in 2017, Docker Inc. has go-to-market and sales partnerships with the biggest companies in IT, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) as part of a deal first announced in June 2016 that bundles Docker with all shipping HPE servers. Docker also has a robust partnership with Microsoft that was announced in September 2016 and a partnership with Cisco announced in March 2017. Docker had previously announced a partnership with IBM back in December 2014.

      The scope of Docker’s commercial aspiration has also been expanding. While originally Docker just provided support for its open-source tools, the company now has a robust Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) offering that includes multiple types of data center capabilities. Docker EE was formally announced earlier this month as a new enterprise-supported product that includes an ecosystem of certified applications and platforms. Docker EE in many respects is the culmination of four years of growth by Docker toward a stable, fully supported enterprise model for Docker Inc.’s commercial products.

      One core area where Docker expanded significantly in the last year is with orchestration and Docker Swarm, a technology first announced in December 2014. In June 2016, the so-called Swarm-mode was first directly integrated into the Docker Engine with the Docker 1.12 release, providing a new approach for container orchestration.

      Container clustering and orchestration over the last few years has become a core area of competition, with the open-source Kubernetes project that the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) now runs emerging to become a leading choice.

      While in some respects Docker Inc. competes directly against Kubernetes, in many other respects it also helps to enable Kubernetes. Although there are other container runtimes, currently Docker is the most widely used and deployed. Docker Inc. is also a founding member of the CNCF.

      Perhaps the biggest new piece in the Docker puzzle, as the project celebrates its fourth birthday, is the continued move toward standardization. While several Docker components early on looked to become de facto standards, there has been competition, notably from rival CoreOS. That rivalry originally led to the creation of the Open Container Initiative (OCI) in June 2015. The OCI effort today helps to define two container specifications, one for the runtime and the other for application images.

      The OCI specifications, however, are relatively low-level, which led Docker to create the containerd project in December 2016 as a complete container runtime project that is based on the OCI specifications. Just last week, Docker Inc. announced that it will be moving the containerd project to the CNCF, the home of Kubernetes.

      With containerd, Docker continues its effort to disaggregate the Docker Engine and create a very modular platform that is based on open standards. Docker Inc. is positioning itself to be able to both innovate on top of the open-source standards as well as enable others to use containerd, plug into it and grow the overall container ecosystem.

      Just as was the case when Docker turned 1 year old, Docker at 4 years old is about much more than just Docker Inc. Certainly the continued evolution of the Docker Inc. business model and go-to-market partnerships are important, but so too is the overall competitive landscape. The growth of Kubernetes and the myriad vendors that support it are proof positive that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for containers. Competition and choice are good things, and are core to a true open-source model. Docker isn’t the only player in the container space, nor should it be.

      The last four years of Docker’s history, from its rise as a nascent open-source project in 2013 to it becoming a core element of the DevOps movement and IT deployment plans in 2017, have been surprising to many. I recently asked Hykes what has surprised him most about his four-year journey with Docker.

      “I’m endlessly surprised every day, and whenever we think it can’t get any more surprising, we’re wrong,” Hykes told eWEEK. “We’re trying to live up to expectations mostly.”

      Sean Michael Kerner
      Sean Michael Kerner is an Internet consultant, strategist, and contributor to several leading IT business web sites.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Big Data and Analytics

      Alteryx’s Suresh Vittal on the Democratization of...

      James Maguire - May 31, 2022 0
      I spoke with Suresh Vittal, Chief Product Officer at Alteryx, about the industry mega-shift toward making data analytics tools accessible to a company’s complete...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×