JFrog Adds Docker Support for its DaaS Platform

JFrog has joined the ever-expanding Docker ecosystem with new support for the container technology in its Bintray distribution-as-a-service (DaaS) platform. Developers use the popular platform to publish, download, store, promote, and share open source software packages.

I think it's fair to call Bintray "popular," because it won a Duke's Choice Award at JavaOne, and it's currently serving 125,690 packages in 39,981 repositories. Then there's the sexy customer list, which includes Apple, Netflix, Twitter, and Oracle.

The France-, US-, and Israel-based JFrog bills Bintray as a self-service platform that gives developers full control over their published software and how it's distributed. Fred Simon, JFrog's cofounder and chief architect, described Bintray as a "seasoned cloud platform," when I Skyped with him earlier this month. "Thousands of developers and DevOps teams use Bintray," he said.

The added Docker support in the new version makes it possible for organizations to create an unlimited number of private Docker repositories, Simon explained. The platform uses the Akamai content delivery network to decrease the download time of large Docker repositories, which speeds up DevOps efforts, he said.

Bintray works hand-in-glove with the company's flagship product, the cloud-based Artifactory binary repository manager (another Duke's Choice winner). Artifactory was one of the first binary repository management solutions. It integrates with the open-source Jenkins continuous integration (CI) server, Atlassian's Bamboo CI, JetBrains' TeamCity build and CI server, the Gradle and Apache Maven project automation tools, and the NuGet package manager for .NET, among others.

JFrog announced support for private Docker Registries in Artifactory last November. The Bintray support was an inevitable next step, Simon told me. "Artifactory is there to aggregate and manage the containers that you are creating, managing, or using; Bintray is really the place to publish and distribute those containers," he said. "You now have an end-to-end solution for many binary or package types."

The company's CEO, Shlomi Ben Haim, called support for Docker "a natural progression of JFrog's mission to provide agnostic, enterprise-grade support for every stage and aspect of code development and deployment."

JFrog launched a new commercial version of its Bintray last year. Bintray Premium supports "premium repositories," with unlimited storage and downloads, full download stats, access control, and download tracking, among other features.

JFrog is just the latest toolmaker to join in the warp-speed expansion of the Docker ecosystem. Containerization and microservice architectures are gaining serious traction in the enterprise, because container-based infrastructures continue to make life easier for the developers who adopt them. As the every insightful IDC analyst Al Hilwa puts it: "The level of ecosystem support Docker has gained is stunning, and it speaks to the need for this kind of technology in the market and the value it provides."

Posted by John K. Waters on March 25, 2015