News

Docker Says Its Open Source Container Technology Now Ready for the Enterprise

• By David Ramel
• March 3, 2017

Just 11 days short of its three-year anniversary, open source Docker container technology has been deemed ready for the enterprise.

Docker Inc. yesterday announced the new commercially supported Docker Enterprise Edition, along with several other enhancements to its offerings to simplify the process of building, running and operating business-critical applications. The company is the main player in container technology, a new take on virtualization that lets developers package apps with their supporting resources in a container that's guaranteed to run consistently on a variety of platforms.

Those supported platforms for Docker EE include several varieties of Linux -- on which Docker got started -- but now also encompass Windows Server 2016 and the Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) and Microsoft Azure clouds. A new packaging of the free open source Docker offering -- the Docker Community Edition (CE) -- was also announced, though it doesn't run on all of the platforms that the EE edition does and obviously includes less functionality.

Docker EE, an extension of the company's previous commercially supported offering called Docker Datacenter, comes in three editions that package together a container runtime along with orchestration, security and management functionality.

Those three versions as described by the company include:

• Basic, starting at $750 per year: The Docker platform for certified infrastructure, with support from Docker Inc. and Certified Containers and Plugins from Docker Store.
• Standard, starting at $1,500 per year: Adds secure multi-tenancy with advanced image, container management, LDAP/AD user integration, secure software supply chain (Docker Datacenter).
• Advanced, starting at $2,000 per year: Adds Docker Security Scanning and continuous vulnerability monitoring.

Both the enterprise and community editions have been switched to a new lifecycle and versioning system based on the date of release, so both editions launched yesterday are 17.03 releases. Future releases will come out on a quarterly schedule, though the community edition has a monthly Edge option to get the "the latest and greatest features" into the hands of developers more quickly.

The company also announced a new Docker Certification Program that recognizes infrastructure, containers and plugins available in the Docker Store "that excel in quality, collaborative support and compliance."

Docker noted that the new development do not present any breaking changes to developers, as it ensured backward API compatibility. Docker 17.03 uses the same API version as does Docker 1.13.1, released last month.

Mano Marks, Docker developer relations lead, also assured developers that the new moves won't change things much for them in a video. "For the most part, tl;dr: It's not going to affect you," he said.