On June 9th, Docker, Inc., the commercial father to the open source Docker container project, announced the release of Docker 1.0 and the Docker Enterprise Support program. Docker uses containers, in lieu of virtual machines, to enable multiple applications to be run at once on the same server.
In its 15 months of evolution, Docker has emerged as a leading container program with support and partnerships from major Linux open source powers such as Canonical and Red Hat. Docker is designed to be an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications on the same operating system.
The program is made up of the Docker Engine, its container standard, and Docker Hub, a cloud-based service for users, content and workflows. The idea behind Docker is that it enables developers to quickly create applications to from components can be deployed and run on laptops, data center servers, or the cloud.
The Docker Engine 1.0 features include:
Current Docker users will find the following new features in the 1.0 release:
Building for Developers
Ops Tooling for Sysadmins
In a statement, Solomon Hykes, Docker's CTO and founder, thanked, "the over 460 contributors to the project – as well as the countless partners, promoters, application publishers and meet-up organizers – for helping Docker reach this important milestone."
"We’d also like to salute the many enterprises that ignored our statements about 'production readiness' and deployed Docker in prior releases. Your bravery (and unvarnished feedback) has been critical as well," he added.
Docker has been proven to work on enterprise-level workloads.
Brian McCallister, CTO of Platform at Groupon, said: "We have started using Docker as the foundation for our build-and-release pipelines because it offers huge benefits around standardization and repeatable processes, especially for a company like Groupon with such a diverse set of technologies in play. The reliability of the platform is critical, and Docker provides the best, most easily managed tool for packaging and deploying services."
It's because of its programmers' hard work and customers' early adoption that Docker is now providing Long Term Support assurances for commercial users of Docker 1.0. The new Docker Enterprise Support program provides enterprise IT customers with the training, expertise, and support necessary for mission-critical workloads built on the Docker platform. With both standard and premium offerings, customers may select the level that meets their requirements, including 24 x 7 x 365 support for Priority 1 issues.
Looking ahead, I see Docker, and containers in general, becoming vitally important in clouds and data centers.
The reason for this is quite simple: Containers enable you to place two to three times as many applications on a single server as virtualization allows you to. When your business profits from getting as much program goodness as you can from the least amount of hardware, containers make excellent sense.
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