DockerCon 2017 Recap: Here’s What You Missed (Part 2 of 2)
Disclaimer: If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, read it here first.
Running Containers on Windows
In a major announcement, Microsoft is bringing Linux kernels to Windows so that Linux-based containers can now run inside the Windows Server. This is accomplished through collaboration between Docker and Microsoft as a means of providing a Linux subsystem that runs atop Hyper-V Hypervisor.
This essentially means that Linux containers will now run just as easily on Windows as any other OS and can now run alongside Windows containers on the same bare metal or virtual machines. Microsoft also announced that developers will be able to choose from a variety of Linux kernels from major Linux vendors.
LinuxKit is on the roadmap for future versions of Hyper-V and Microsoft Server.
A Platform Made of Components
Hykes made a specific point of talking about how Docker has grown from a monolithic open source project to a system of distributed projects that fit together as follows:
The overarching theme was that Docker has come a long way, and in order to facilitate a growing community with expanding needs, it needed to become a more holistic and distributed system.
As a result, users can now expect more projects, components and primitives to be released as open-source in the not-too-distant future. Hykes also noted that one major challenge to the future of containers is dealing with increased scale as a technology to service increasingly specialized needs and use cases.
The open component model started to show its limits to servicing desktop, server, cloud, etc. Examples discussed:
- Servers
- Datacenters
- Consumer IoT
- Industrial IoT
- Operating Systems
- Mainframes
- Mobile
Interestingly, the auto industry has solved this problem through the application of common assemblies and scaling the Docker production model through the use of shared components and assemblies.
Meet Moby
The Moby project is an open-source framework developed to assemble specialized container systems without reinventing the wheel (music to our ears!). It features several noteworthy items, including:
- Library of 80+ components
- Ability to package your own components as containers
- Reference assemblies deployed on millions of nodes
- Ability to create your own assemblies or start from an existing one
Docker uses Moby as a framework for its open-source projects to help manage thousands of contributors and hundreds of patches/week. It’s ideal for:
- Component development
- Specialized assembly development
- Integration tests
- Architecture design
- Integration with other projects
- Experimentation and bleeding edge features
Moby is community-run and features open governance inspired by the Fedora project. It also plays well with existing projects. Most importantly, from a user perspective, Docker will better leverage the ecosystem to facilitate faster innovation. It’s also ideal for system builders because it allows innovation without being tied to Docker.
One of the most interesting components of the Moby portion of DockerCon was learning about how it’s capable of transforming multi-month R&D projects into weekend projects. Examples include: locked-down Linux with remote attestation, custom CI/CD stack, custom CI/CD stack + Debian + Terraform, RedisOS and Kubernetes Cluster on Mac.
Overall, we’re happy to report that this year’s DockerCon was a resounding success and we’re super excited (as we’re sure you are) to experience many of the changes and improvements firsthand.
Getting Started with Docker Swarm
If you’re interested in getting started with Docker Swarm on AWS or Azure, consider checking out Caylent.
Caylent is a cloud-agnostic Container Management Platform that acts as a fully managed Docker Swarm solution and has lots of great features like one-click deployments, continuous delivery, user access management, and more.
Did you attend this year’s event? What key takeaways did we miss? Please share in the comments section.
