There are great moments in history where people, united in a common goal, have worked together to do something amazing.
Something initially no one thought was possible.
And to take things to new heights of excellence
Things that contribute to changing the course of history.
When you’re in the middle of writing code at 2 in the morning, it’s hard to realize that what the ultimate impact might be.
But here today, we’re in the middle of something amazing.
We’re creating something great. Maybe not on the same scale as a bridge or skyscraper, but great nonetheless.
We’re building a community.
And this community has a lot to celebrate.
The contributors to Docker are making the use of Linux containers trivial and and pervasive.
They are enabling application virtualization for new users and a wide variety of use cases.
At Rackspace we actually have a long history with Docker.
Docker (dot.cloud) once shared office space with Mailgun. A company that Rackspace acquired a few years ago.
But we didn’t just share office space…We shared a common idea.
A commitment to open source and community.
I’d like to say that we were way out in front when it came to Docker.
But we didn’t get really involved until customers and Rackers like Sasha pulled us into it. Here’s a video about what we have been doing with Docker since then.
[RACKER VIDEO]
[RACKER VIDEO]
Containers are transformative.
As we saw in the videos, Rackers are fired up about Docker. Specifically, we use Docker to:
Test and deploy new applications internally.
Our DevOps Rackers love working with Docker.
They can keep more things consistent as they move from dev to test to production for customers.
As we heard in the video, Mailgun uses Docker quite heavily.
The biggest benefit? Simplicity.
Mailgun runs 5 DBs on 50 different instances.
It takes 72 Chef cookbooks and 36 roles for an instance.
That’s a lot of dependencies to worry about.
By using Docker containers, it allows the team to sleep at night.
And recently Mailgun has been working on Shipper, a fabric for Docker. Essentially. a tool for orchestrating Docker containers.
Another team is using Docker to build an OpenStack-based ALM/PaaS.
This is a complex application built with collaborators and contributors all over the world.
RedHat advocated using Docker for CICD.
Simple idea: run a container right from the Git Repository.
It’s enabled us to build and run in a matter of seconds. Makes us agile and eases collaboration.
Load Balancing is another area
Docker makes multi-tenancy of software based load balancers easy.
Containerization helps connect load balancing with our Cloud Networks.
This connects cloud servers on a layer-two network.
It makes it easy to use any network protocol, not just TCP/IP.
We can do this securely and with high performance, so it’s cost effective.
Those were the approved use cases.
But then we asked Rackers how they were using Docker…and we got a few surprises…
Rackers use Docker in ways we didn’t know about.
It’s where we get innovation.
Today we’re using Docker to:
deploy OpenStack services
virtualize network hardware
isolate Hadoop environments
run Logstash infrastructure
quickly provision our support teams with admin tools in customer environments
Anything that streamlines support benefits our bottom line.
Last summer we saw first hand what Docker could do at serious scale when we met with one of our customers called Pantheon.
Pantheon uses Docker containers on top of bare metal servers in our datacenters to run content management software for its customers.
Docker allows Pantheon to instantly provision Drupal or Wordpress sites for its customers in seconds.
instead of the several minutes it would take with a cloud server or EC2 instance.
We recently had a chance to talk to Pantheon CEO Zack Rosen about this.
[PANTHEON VIDEO]
Containers are transformative.
But all of the existing use cases and examples are just baby steps toward what will be.
I saw this quote on the Docker meetup page
I’m not sure who said this but it totally resonates with me.
It illustrates the path we’re on
This path is helping address the realities of the modern web. The challenges presented by these megatrends.
Virtualization was the first step in addressing these demands.
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service was the next step.
And now containers are taking it even further.
Further in efficiency, performance, ease of use, further in every dimension.
Just like Pantheon needs Docker to run at their scale, these trends also demand similar architectures and strategies.
We believe that this path is leading us to a planet-scale cloud.
It will be hybrid, multivendor and highly flexible and customizable.
Docker could be a major enabler of that future.
Docker could provide the abstraction that makes swapping workloads between clouds easy.
And they don’t have to all be OpenStack clouds either.
Containerization makes the application agnostic to the underlying infrastructure.
Docker could be the glue that makes this future possible.
It could enable true application portability.
Or help users find the architectural best-fit for their needs by reducing lock-in
As exciting as it is today, Docker can be so much more.
We love how Docker works on your laptop
We want to make Docker work that easy in the cloud.
And not just our cloud. Any cloud.
At Rackspace, we have been working with core Docker team for months to make this vision a reality.
What it really comes down to is…
Native Cloud Support for Docker.
Think about the cloud as a new destination for Docker. Not just one ship.
But a whole shipping industry that makes it easy to send Docker containers anywhere.
In a way that when you start a Docker container, it automatically starts a cloud server to put it on.
And when you are done with a Docker container, the cloud server goes away automatically.
And best of all you access this Native Cloud Support with the Docker commands you already know.
And we built native cloud support so it will work on any cloud. And we’re contributing all of our work back to the community.
That’s what we’ve been working on and Solomon is going to have more exciting details tomorrow.
I’d encourage all of you to get involved in the Docker community – from dockerizing applications, to code contributions to documentation and more.
To get containers to work in the shipping industry, companies had to work together
It wouldn’t have worked if the docks, cranes, shipping containers weren’t designed to work together.
To do the same thing in this context, we need to build a similar foundation for Docker.
We need to make sure that we don’t go in different directions with Docker and confuse users.
When we all work together in the spirit of contribution and collaboration, great things will happen.
How will we know if we’re successful?
If we’re standing here at dockercon 2015 or 2016 and…
--Other major cloud providers volunteer engineers to OPENLY participate in the evolution of native cloud support for docker
-- Launching Containers in the cloud are as easy (or easier) as containers on your desktop.
--The Docker community celebrates many code contributions and contributors.
--Users show us where to go, code contributions get us there.
--New unimaginable Docker-enabled applications emerge.
--And finally an even larger and STRONGER community. One that balances all of our needs.
If you want to know more about what we’re doing with Docker, check out this link.
Or join us on IRC.
