Docker is a set of tools for Linux containers that were developed with the goal of making it easier to “build, ship, and run” distributed applications. In March of 2013, it was initially made available to the public by DotCloud as an open source project. The project gained traction very quickly, which resulted in DotCloud changing its name to Docker Inc. Docker 1.0 was made available to the public in June of 2014, and the company has maintained the same monthly release cadence that was followed leading up to that release. In a certified Docker course, the general public can learn Docker Hub, Docker Compose, Docker Swarm, Dockerfile, Docker Containers, Docker Engine, Docker Images, Docker Network, Docker Daemon, and Docker Storage.

The 1.0 release was the point at which Docker, Inc. determined that the platform had reached such a level of maturity at which it could be used in production (with the company and partners providing paid-for support options). The project is still rapidly progressing, as evidenced by the monthly release of point updates. New features are being added, and existing problems are being fixed as they are discovered. However, the project has successfully decoupled ‘ship’ from ‘run,’ which means that images sourced from any of the many version of Docker can be used with any other version (with both forward and backward compatibility). This provides a stable foundation for the use of Docker despite the rapid change that is occurring in the industry.

It’s possible that Docker’s meteoric rise to the status of one of the most popular open source projects is nothing more than hype, but behind the scenes, there’s a lot of substance. Docker has garnered support from a wide variety of well-known companies throughout the sector, including Amazon, Canonical, CenturyLink, Google, IBM, Microsoft, New Relic, Pivotal, Red Hat, and VMware, amongst others. Because of this, it is almost always available wherever Linux has utilized, thanks to its widespread availability. In addition to the already well-known companies, a growing number of start-ups are emerging around Docker or shifting their focus to become more compatible with it. These partnerships, both large and small, are helping to propel the core project and the ecosystem that surrounds it toward a more rapid evolution.

Docker is widely considered to be the virtualization platform of the future. It is undeniable that its popularity is on the rise, particularly because major corporations such as Netflix, Spotify, PayPal, and Uber are adopting the containerization system. Hosting for Docker containers is provided by Hyve on our in-house Private Docker platform. We hand off app development to developers and focus instead on managing the underlying infrastructure.

What exactly is Docker?

Docker is a container management tool that was developed to simplify the process of developing, deploying, and operating software by utilizing containers.

Containers are helpful because they enable developers to ship out an application together with all of the components that it requires, such as libraries and so on, in a single package. This is a time-saving capability.

Testing environment: Docker is popular among developers because it frees them from the burden of having to consider the possibility of software incompatibilities on the computer from which they are deploying applications. Because everything is configured within the container, Docker offers a reliable testing environment. This is one of the many reasons for Docker’s popularity.

In either the production environment or the development environment, it is possible to get a Docker app up and running with just a single command. In production, deploying containers is as easy as toggling a switch, which helps to reduce the number of errors that occur as well as the amount of time it takes to deploy.

Docker’s advantages include replication and high availability, both of which are built right in. When you create one Docker container, an identical copy of it is also created elsewhere. This guarantees that there will be a backup container readily available in the event that any errors occur.

Portability is one of the primary advantages that Docker offers, and it is also one of its main selling points. Users have the ability to construct an image and repurpose it as an independent container.

Scalability is another benefit that comes with using Docker containers. Once an image is up and running, it is simple to scale it by simply replicating the container. This cuts down on the total amount of time that is spent developing software by being extremely helpful to developers who need to create multiple instances for testing.

Docker is helpful for developers who must quickly run a handful of small applications for the purpose of testing rather than spinning up a fully specced virtual machine to do the same job. This is because Docker can run multiple instances of an application at the same time.

Docker’s bright future ahead

Docker, Inc. has paved the way for the development of core capabilities (libcontainer), cross-service management (libswarm), and messaging between containers by laying out a specific plan (libchan). Through the purchase of Orchard Labs, the company has already demonstrated that it is willing to participate in the consumption of its own ecosystem. Docker is, however more than just Docker Inc., as evidenced by the fact that notable companies such as Google, IBM, and Red Hat have all made contributions to the project. There is a distinct nexus of technical leadership for both the company and the project, and it is provided by CTO Solomon Hykes, who acts as a kind of benevolent dictator at the helm of operations. The project has demonstrated an ability to move quickly by utilizing its own output over the course of its first 18 months, and there are no signs that this ability will diminish in the near future.

Many investors are taking a look at the features matrix for VMware’s ESX/vSphere platform, which was released ten years ago, in order to determine where the gaps (and opportunities) are between the enterprise expectations that have been driven by the popularity of VMs and the current Docker ecosystem. Underserved by the current Docker ecosystem are areas such as networking, storage, and fine-grained version management (for the contents of containers). These areas present opportunities for both new businesses and companies that have been in business for a while.

The distinction between virtual machines (VMs) and containers (the ‘run’ part of Docker) is likely going to lose some of its significance over time. This will cause more focus to be placed on the ‘build’ and ‘ship’ aspects of Docker. Because of these alterations, the question of “what happens to Docker?” will become of much less significance than the question of “what happens to the IT industry as a direct result of Docker?”