Docker has been doing a lot of talking about Containers as a Service lately, explaining how they must be flexible, how they must not lock you in, and so on, and it turns out there’s a reason; the company was laying the groundwork for the release of Docker Datacenter, its Containers as a Service product.  But here’s the catch: it’s not open source.

That’s not to say that it’s not based open source pieces, of course; the Docker engine is still open source, as is Docker Swarm, Docker Compose, and so on.  Previously, however, the company had released proprietary products aimed at the enterprise, including the Docker Trusted Registry and the Docker Universal Control Plane, both of which now become part of Docker DataCenter. And all in all, the company does have to monetize its products somehow.

Billed as an end-to-end container-native environment, Docker DataCenter provides companies a way to easily get up and running on Docker containers. When it comes to the potential for vendor lock-in, Scott Johnston, senior vice president of product management at Docker essentially sidestepped the issue, telling InfoWorld, “Enterprise customers have asked for integrated solutions where the components all work well together. The ability to take a digitally signed image from the developer’s laptop, to validate its signature and who signed it, to put it into the Trusted Registry and make automated policy decisions from it — like geofencing or keeping it only in the data center if it’s proprietary IP — those types of benefits have been really exciting to enterprise customers.”

Docker also announced the launch of Docker Cloud, based on the Tutum technology they bought late last year — users can get one node free to start, and then pricing goes to $.02 per node per hour — as well as the purchase of Conductant, which brings the company the creator of the Apache Aurora tool (originally created for Twitter).

Resources

• Introducing Docker Datacenter to Power Your On-Premises CaaS | Docker Blog
• “Everything agnostic” is the only requirement for Containers as a Service (CaaS) | Docker Blog
• Video: Docker Containers-as-a-Service Walkthrough | Docker Blog
• Docker delivers a full data center solution but there is a catch | Network World
• What Docker Datacenter means to DevOps and the Industry
• Docker Datacenter promises end-to-end container control for enterprises | InfoWorld
• Docker Inc Release ‘Docker Datacenter’ to Support On-Premise ‘Containers as a Service’ (CaaS)
• Docker launches Datacenter platform for container DevOps
• How to Get the Docker Datacenter Training You Need | Docker Blog
• New Docker Datacenter Admin Suite Should Bring Order To Containerization | TechCrunch
• Docker Datacenter | Docker
• Announcing Docker Cloud | Docker Blog
• Tutum technology bobs back to surface as Docker Cloud • The Register
• Docker acquires Conductant as it looks to help businesses run large-scale systems | TechCrunch
• Docker snaps up Apache Aurora devs for Swarm team | InfoWorld
• The Dawn of the Orchestration-for-All Era: Docker welcomes the creators of the Aurora project | Docker Blog