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Docker Enterprise Container Cloud: Continuously updated, multi-cloud Kubernetes

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Kubernetes is complicated. Leveraging multiple cloud platforms, providers, technology stacks, and flavors of Kubernetes is even more complex, demanding, risky, and expensive. 
That's why today we are pleased to announce the release of Docker Enterprise Container Cloud, designed to help you ship code faster by providing choice, simplicity, and security.
Docker Enterprise Container Cloud is a multi-cloud management solution that gives you one set of APIs and tools to deploy, manage, and observe secure-by-default, certified, batteries-included Kubernetes clusters on any infrastructure: public cloud, private cloud, or bare metal. What's more, they are continuously updated by Mirantis, with zero downtime.   
OK, that's a lot, so let's look at what it actually means.

Multi-cloud management

At the base of Mirantis offerings has always been freedom from vendor lock-in. In this case it means the ability to spin up Kubernetes clusters on a variety of different providers. For example, you might have some clusters on-prem, on your OpenStack cloud, and others on Amazon Web Services. You can even deploy on bare metal!
It works like this:
  1. Deploy the management cluster.
  2. The management cluster deploys regional clusters. 
  3. Regional clusters deploy and manage child clusters.
For example, you might deploy a regional cluster (Cluster1) on the AWS us-east-1a region, and a second (Cluster2) on your internal OpenStack cloud. Each manages Docker Enterprise Kubernetes clusters in its own region. So Cluster2 would create and manage Kubernetes clusters that run on your local OpenStack resources, while Cluster1 manages Kubernetes clusters running on EC2 servers in the us-east-1a region.

The importance of a standard API

At first it may seem silly to even worry about this; after all, can't you just use services like Amazon's Kubernetes Service to create clusters?  Sure you can, but once you've done that, you're locking yourself into the AWS management API, AWS deployment tooling, and thus the AWS cloud (and AWS bills).
By providing a common management API, Docker Enterprise Container Cloud provides a number of advantages:
  1. Freedom to move among different providers as price, capability, and geography dictate
  2. Freedom to stop maintaining multiple provisioning stacks, unique to each infrastructure or provider
  3. The ability to see what's going on overall from a single pane of management glass
  4. The ability to see aggregated statistics using Stacklight, Mirantis' Logging, Monitoring, and Alerting framework
This release also brings a few more advantages.

Automated upgrades and other release highlights

Docker Enterprise Container Cloud is a complete lifecycle management system, periodically checking for updates and applying them without disrupting user workloads. It also integrates with ActiveDirectory and other IAM management systems, enabling you to provide your users a public cloud experience right in your own environment.
And of course underlying all clusters, Docker Enterprise Kubernetes is hardened for enterprise production use, and its Docker Engine - Enterprise container runtime features content trust, STIG, OSCAL, FIPS 140-2 encryption, and other technologies required by Gov/Mil and regulated industries.
We also have three new service offerings:
  • LabCare includes business day support for non-production clusters, hardened software packages with regular maintenance updates and critical fixes, as well as remote incident resolution.
  • ProdCare includes 24x7x365 support for production, with enhanced SLA and escalation management.
  • OpsCare includes fully managed remote operations with up to 99.99% SLA, 15 minute initial response time, lifecycle and alert management, and customer advocacy and roadmap planning.
There's also more for your developers this time around.

Developers, Container Cloud, and Lens

Most of the time, Docker Enterprise releases are all about operators, but not this time; in addition to our goal of providing the equivalent of the public cloud experience on your own infrastructure, we want to help you ship code faster by enabling you to deploy a cluster without having to think about it -- or worse, get permission!
And don't forget about Lens, the world's most popular Kubernetes IDE, which enables you to work with any Kubernetes cluster, as long as you have the KUBECONFIG. Manage multiple clusters without losing your context, group clusters into workspaces to ease the pain of managing dozens or hundreds (or thousands!) of clusters.
So go ahead and try out both Docker Enterprise Container Cloud and Lens, and join us at Launchpad2020 for more information about both!

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