Docker Expands Enterprise Focus As Container Ecosystem Matures

Mirantis, better known for its role in the OpenStack community, released the Mirantis Cloud Platform, a bundle that includes OpenStack and Mirantis’ own distribution of Kubernetes, as well as software-defined storage and networking components.

The key piece, however, is a new deployment and lifecycle management component called DriveTrain, which picks up where OpenStack by itself leaves off. “This is a meaningful departure from how we were doing things before,” said Boris Renski, co-founder and CMO of Mirantis, in an interview with eWEEK. “The operations and ‘Day 2’ things were an afterthought so we completely reengineered the lifecycle component.”

Filling the Technology Gaps

As the ecosystem around Docker and open source container projects mature, other basic infrastructure pieces will begin to emerge. “There will be a lot more conversation around storage,” said Abby Kearns, Executive Director of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, in an interview.

“When we think about all of these organizations that are developing code and being multi-cloud, and the portability of application workloads, one of the things we don’t actually talk about is ‘where’s the data?’ ”

Despite the success stories told here at DockerCon, container adoption is still in its earliest days. Even as Docker matures, new models and tools around microservices are emerging that threaten to disrupt a still nascent industry and could leave users late to the party confused about which direction to take.

“Technology is evolving exponentially, but user adoption and use of that technology at scale in production is trailing pretty far behind. There’s a huge gap between where the tech is and where the users really are,” Kearns said.

“One of the things we should continue to do is as a community is be cognizant of that, not just in the capabilities of technology, but how do we do a better job of enabling those users who are still trying to figure out these technologies and what they mean for their organizations.”

Scot Petersen is a technology analyst at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. He has an extensive background in the technology field. Prior to joining Ziff Brothers, Scot was the editorial director, Business Applications & Architecture, at TechTarget. Before that, he was the director, Editorial Operations, at Ziff Davis Enterprise. While at Ziff Davis Media, he was a writer and editor at eWEEK. No investment advice is offered in his blog. All duties are disclaimed. Scot works for a private investment firm, which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this blog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

Originally published on eWeek