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Microsoft Partners With Docker

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the team-up dept.

rjmarvin writes Docker is teaming up with Microsoft to bring its open container technology to the next release of Windows Server. Docker Engine will work with the next release of Windows Server and images will be available in Docker Hub, which will also integrate directly into Microsoft Azure. The partnership moves Docker beyond Linux for the first time with new multi-container application capabilities for cloud and enterprise developers.

59 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. What? by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why is Microsoft partnering with a Jeans brand? And how much did Docker pay to post a link to their content-free press release on the front page of Slashdot?

    1. Re:What? by Verdatum · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't you just love it when Slashdot summaries talk about some niche product without introducing the topic, just assuming everyone knows WTF it is?

    2. Re:What? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Well there have been a number of stories about Docker on Slashdot and there are links in the story that explain what it is as well if you hadn't read the previous stories and don't know what it is.

    3. Re:What? by jbolden · · Score: 3, Informative

      Docker isn't niche. It is one of the core technologies for DevOps which is designing application infrastructures where IT provides a platform for in-house and integrate micro-services rather than providing monolithic applications to departments. Many PaaS systems are based on Docker particularly Helion (HP), CenturyLink, Rackspace its a big player for AWS...

    4. Re:What? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      While I've seen some gross examples of this case in the past, Docker while being new is already a buzz word, they went 1.0 back in June or July, so one fiscal quarter after the fact is not too bleeding edge to need a description here.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    5. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Of the terms you threw out, I know what IT is, and I've "heard" of Rackspace -- but only because of adverspam; I have no idea what they do.

      DevOps = never heard of it
      PaaS = no freaking clue
      Helion = no earthly idea (and why area you referencing Hewlett-Packard?)
      CenturyLink = I got nothing
      AWS = nada

    6. Re:What? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      [Buzzword] isn't niche. It is one of the core technologies for [Buzzword] which is designing application infrastructures where IT provides a platform for in-house and integrate [Buzzword] rather than providing [Buzzword] to departments. Many [Buzzword] systems are based on [Buzzward] particularly [Buzzward], [Buzzward], [Buzzward] its a big player for [Buzzward]...

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    7. Re:What? by Verdatum · · Score: 2

      But it is nice be told what realm the product deals with beyond "Microsoft", "Linux", "Server", "Cloud" and "Enterprise developers" (terms like "Container" and "application" are far too generic, and have far too many meanings within the realm of software engineering, so that means nothing to me without more context). By providing such a background, I can know without reading the article if it is something that is likely to be of interest to me. At the very least, the first linked article should broadly describe what the product is before leaping into the announcement. Instead, I find myself scanning the article, getting confused, glancing around the website for useful links, finding a "what is Docker" link, scanning that, and still being a bit confused as to how this is different from virtual machines, despite having a section titled "How is this different from Virtual Machines?"

    8. Re:What? by lgw · · Score: 1

      You know this is a "news for nerds" site, right, not a place for fans of geeky TV shows?

      If you want to run some distributed service on a bunch of servers, all these acronyms should be known to you. Docker is somewhat new, and is a clever idea for a container that's lighter weight than a VM running in a hypervisor, but gives some of the same benefits: a "cooked" software install - a snapshot with everything you need installed, not a blank space where you have to run installers - and some degree of isolation/jailing between containers.

      So, for example, if you have some distributed number-crunching modeling application you wrote, with a bunch of complicated dependencies, the old way was to make a VM image that's ready to go and deploy that image 10000 times in the cloud, but is has to be compatible with the specific server offerings you're renting (number of CPUs, amount of memory, etc). Docker is a further layer of abstraction, so you instead create a Docker container, have the same no-install ease of use, but have more flexibility in how you provision 10000 instances for a few hours to run your job.

      Docker is also handy for other lightweight server tasks where you want to mix and match processes without installers running.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ok here is the bloated form for people like you who can't seem to operate a search engine and need every term explained to them or directly linked.

      Docker (which is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications. Consisting of Docker Engine, a portable, lightweight runtime and packaging tool, and Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, Docker enables apps to be quickly assembled from components and eliminates the friction between development, QA, and production environments. As a result, IT can ship faster and run the same app, unchanged, on laptops, data center VMs, and any cloud) isn't niche. It is one of the core technologies for DevOps (a concept dealing with, among other things: software development, operations, and services. It emphasizes communication, collaboration, and integration between software developers and information technology (IT) operations personnel) which is designing application infrastructures where IT provides a platform for in-house and integrate micro-services (that are small, independent processes communicating with each other using language-agnostic APIs to form complex applications) rather than providing monolithic applications (single-tiered software applications in which the user interface and data access code are combined into a single program from a single platform) to departments. Many PaaS (Platform as a Service, a category of cloud computing services that provides a computing platform and a solution stack as a service) systems are based on Docker particularly Helion, CenturyLink, Rackspace its a big player for AWS...

      So much easier to understand right?

    10. Re:What? by kharchenko · · Score: 1, Insightful

      DevOps is a niche. Get over it.

    11. Re:What? by asv108 · · Score: 1

      If you don't know what Docker is by now you should probably look for a new line of work if you're in IT.

    12. Re:What? by jbolden · · Score: 2

      Docker has lower cost per service and worse security. So the same hardware can run many many more times as many docker containers as VMs. This encourages designs that cut services into more parts. So while a typical large applications might run on 1 or 2 VMs a typical large Docker application might make use of a dozen or more containers. Docker thus plays the same role of a Linux distribution in that it designs hundreds or thousands of pieces of software to work together, but in a way that allows for specialization so small companies can work on their containers in isolation.

      If you are a developer I'd try it. It is pretty cool running essentially the same setup I'd be running in a large server cluster production environment on a small VM on my laptop. It is also excellent for productivity that you have your own mini copy of "prod".

    13. Re:What? by fnj · · Score: 1

      Thank you. That was helpful. And nobody with a login could fucking bother helping us. Mod up the AC.

    14. Re:What? by qpqp · · Score: 1
      Docker is a wrapper for container(s) [used to be just LXC, not anymore]

      Docker is a different, lightweight layer of abstraction

      FTFY. (It's not another abstraction layer on top of VMs. I know you meant that.) The first link above is a pretty good introduction, actually.*

      so you instead create a Docker container

      You can also create (a) docker-file(s) and build it on the 1000 instances. Sometimes it is easier to distribute 1000 almost the same, but a bit different docker files than preparing a container that parses arguments.
      *contrary to the information in the article, you can run more than one service/program in a docker container.

    15. Re:What? by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

      I thought all the articles are about how cloud computing is insecure, deleting your files, and how Amazon is loosing $2 Billion/year on their hosting service and may just close up service on your servers out of nowhere.

    16. Re:What? by Verdatum · · Score: 1

      Thank you for that :)

    17. Re:What? by flopsquad · · Score: 1

      I assume MS is providing Windows for showing off mannequins in khakis, and Dockers is providing stylish shoes in a promotion to get people to walk away from the Apple store.

      --
      Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
    18. Re:What? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Well, you run Dockers in VMs in practice, since that's what the cloud is - a place to rent VMs. So you end up with a host with one or more VMs, each with one or more Docker containers. But what I find neat is your containers don't have to care about the VMs - you can run more in larger VMs, fewer in smaller VMs, and homogenize everything that way. Which is great if you're using something like EC2 Spot to get whatever VM is cheapest that day, but now you don't care at all whether it's 1000 8-core VMs or 2000 4-core or whatever, as long as the total power is about the same. Makes for a very cheap supercomputer.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    19. Re:What? by marcello_dl · · Score: 1

      Helpful? you kidding me? For example, what's a platform? Don't push your niche knowledge on the rest of us, nerdling.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    20. Re:What? by Thornburg · · Score: 1

      DevOps is a niche. Get over it.

      Huh?
      Do you even know what "DevOps" is?

      Here, I'll tell you: Devops: IT infrastructure folks, devs, QA people, sitting in a room and working together to release software on a timely basis.

      How it works:
      1) Boss schedules a meeting
      2) Everyone shows up
      3) Work out a couple of things that'll make everyone's jobs easier.
      4) Do that.
      5) Repeat.

      That's it. Seriously. It's not cloud voodoo, it's not shirt-and-tie marketspeak, it doesn't take expensive consultants or software or anything.

      If that's considered "niche" in your world, I sure as fuck don't want to work at whatever miserable place you're working at.

      Wow. I've apparently been working in the wrong places for the last 15 years.

      Where do I find this place where meetings are simple and productive?

  2. Re:made for each other. by c0d3g33k · · Score: 1

    please elaborate ...

  3. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by Russ1642 · · Score: 1

    It means I know nothing about Windows Server or Docker.

  4. Re:made for each other. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I speak fluent cunt, allow me to translate. When GP said:

    docker is anti-Unix in significant ways, so should be a great match for Msft - maybe with some systemd to spice up their love-life.

    What he meant to say was:

    "I'm used to doing things a certain way, and I hate when other people come along and improve or change a system I'm used to using. Because of that, I will senselessly parrot the same bullshit talking points about things I don't understand as if they're fact, all over the web."

    Is that more clear?

  5. For once, they hit the mark by Krishnoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Our favorite company can finally put out a marketing campaign truly worthy of their name:

    "Microsoft is pants."

  6. Great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Great....now my khakis are going to have a back door so the NSA can have it's way.

  7. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Docker containers are like VM's but smaller. I think what it means is that a Windows server / VM will be able to run dozens-hundreds of Windows micro-services inside a Docker for Windows infrastructure. Or basically once finished you as a developer can now write Windows apps that don't need to install and will run on any Windows, no more version dependencies! Just like Docker is doing for Linux today.

  8. Re:made for each other. by c0d3g33k · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that helps, but I'd like to hear from the original poster, to be honest.

  9. Translation by thechemic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Docker = Mens apparel company
    Open Container = Open and ready-to-drink beer usually found in a moving vehicle
    Docker Engine = Something that goes "vrooom" in your pants
    Images = pictures
    Docker Hub = a place to connect your pants with people
    Azure = bright blue color, often associated with a sky

    A men’s apparel company is teaming up with Microsoft to bring its ready-to-drink beer technology to the next server in the window. Penises will work with the server and pictures of everything will be available while people share experiences with each other’s pants. The penises and pants will also integrate directly into uh-hem “Blue stuff”. The partnership moves pants n shit away from Linux for the first time. With new multi-ready-to-drink beers technology clouds will consume enterprise developers.

    --
    Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
    1. Re:Translation by flopsquad · · Score: 1

      clouds will consume enterprise developers

      That one got me. Laugh almost woke up the wife.

      --
      Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
  10. Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. by broknstrngz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Say it isn't so.

  11. Re:April 1st already? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Docker heavily relies on linux kernel features

    ...which you can make available to Docker on Windows as per the instructions here, and which in any case probably won't be the situation now that they've partnered with Microsoft...

    and on a stable base OS

    How does Docker "rely [...] on a stable base OS" any more than any other piece of software (several million of which run perfectly well on Windows)?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  12. Re: what the hell could this possibly mean by daveywest · · Score: 1

    So we're back to beige computers?

  13. Interesting, but... by trawg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... I'd actually rather see Docker in the user space for Windows. There are zillions of Windows applications that would benefit from Docker-isation - being able to download things off the Internet and more safely run them is something I've wanted for ages.

    There are various application sandbox things for Windows (e.g., Sandboxie) but I haven't seen anything open source that is as reliable and commonly used as Docker seems to be.

    I think it'd be OK on the server side as well, but I'd love to be able to download nice jailed Docker versions of most Windows apps so I can run them without having to worry too much about what they're doing in my userspace.

    1. Re:Interesting, but... by jbolden · · Score: 2

      Remember Docker isn't secure. Process that want to escape can escape. So you still want Docker containers running in a VM not against bare metal. There is no reason that couldn't be the case say 2020 when people are tightly tied to Azure. Docker is usually deployed in PaaS environments so it would your server user space.

      What you might want is a Windows VM (or more than one) inside your Windows that you use for Internet downloads.

    2. Re:Interesting, but... by trawg · · Score: 1

      What you might want is a Windows VM (or more than one) inside your Windows that you use for Internet downloads.

      At the moment I just run separate VMs, but it's a bit heavyweight.

      Remember Docker isn't secure. Process that want to escape can escape.

      Hmm, that seems counter to the Docker security model - the processes are not supposed to be able to get out of their container ... or so it claims. How do Docker processes escape?

    3. Re:Interesting, but... by jbolden · · Score: 2

      I'm not a security expert, I'm parroting so with that disclaimer YMMV.

      There are many parts of the Linux kernel that don't understand the UID/GID on containers. So essentially you pass a UID to LXC and run some kernel code you shouldn't have have access to. This is being cleaned up but there are still hundreds of holes. Some of these holes are well known and document though not yet fixed. The way it is being fixed is by trying to limit some of the system calls but that of course breaks compatibility.

      LXC doesn't protect against buffer overflows and lots of stuff in the root of the system is readable (see for example vmsplice exploit). It is easy for a container to write to ram and then get the main kernel to execute instructions. Containers can be set to only run code that was loaded (i.e. execution space is read only) but that breaks many applications.

      Physical devices are another problem. If a container can access a physical device then it can pass code back to the kernel. Device are not virtualized. (BTW this won't be a problem for your use case of Windows since all device drivers are virtualized unlike Linux).

      The second issue is the containers while chrooted can have access to the filesystem the way any chroot program can. There are lots of exploits if one can write to arbitrary files to get privilege escalation.

  14. Docker and wrappers by Mark+of+the+North · · Score: 1

    I've had trouble thinking of Docker as anything but a, fairly thin, wrapper to LXC. When Docker announced a move to support BSD, that made sense, because of the existence of jails. LXC and jails obviously have a fair bit of over-lapping functionality, so supporting the BSDs isn't a huge leap...but Windows? Microsoft must have a team well into work on containerization, otherwise this new partnership would have to implement everything from scratch. And given the mayhem that cgroups brought to Linux, I can't see that happening quickly.

  15. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by multi+io · · Score: 1

    Docker containers are like VM's but smaller. I think what it means is that a Windows server / VM will be able to run dozens-hundreds of Windows micro-services inside a Docker for Windows infrastructure. Or basically once finished you as a developer can now write Windows apps that don't need to install and will run on any Windows, no more version dependencies! Just like Docker is doing for Linux today.

    Yeah, but wouldn't it have to be rewritten from scratch on Windows? AFAIK there is no chroot, cgroups or anything like that in Windows (I guess there might be equivalents). And I have no idea what you would do about the registry blob in this scenario.

  16. What is Docker and why should you care? by steveha · · Score: 4, Informative

    Docker is sort of an extremely lightweight virtual machines system.

    Docker organizes software into "containers". Each container has a complete set of libraries and files, and each container is isolated from the rest of the system. Thus if you need a specific and touchy set of libraries to run Software X, and you need a different specific and touchy set of libraries to run Software Y, you can simply make two containers and run them side by side.

    As I understand it, Docker container images use a "snapshots" system to store changes; so the two containers for Software X and Software Y will together be much smaller than two VM images would be.

    Using Docker, if developers make a server-side application, they can then hand a container over to production for deployment, and everyone can be confident that the application will run the same in production as it ran in development. (Of course it would still be possible to break things, for example by having different data in the production database compared to the dev test database.) Or, developers could run containers on their laptops and expect them to run the same as on the servers in the office.

    Unlike VMs, the Docker containers don't run their own kernels. So you can't run a Linux server with Docker that in turn runs OpenBSD in a container.

    As I understand it, many people use Docker to run a single process per container. The web server in one container, the email server in another, the SSH server in another, etc. One use case: if you have a web site hosted in the cloud, and the Slashdot effect starts slamming on the web site, the cloud hosting service could spin up another 500 instances of the web site (500 fresh instances of the Docker container, each container running a single process, the web server).

    I talked to an expert sysadmin, and he told me "This is the future." I'm going to set up a Docker server at home and learn my way around it.

    https://www.docker.com/whatisdocker/

    My reading of the press release is that Microsoft is going to (a) implement the Docker APIs for Windows, so that Windows server applications can be container-ized; and (b) add the ability to run Linux containers. The latter is not implausible; Windows NT has always had so-called "personalities" and Posix has been available as a personality for decades.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_kernel#NT_kernel

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    1. Re:What is Docker and why should you care? by jbolden · · Score: 2

      You sound like you are interested.

      If I can make a suggestion: http://www.activestate.com/sta... is a terrific way for you to start playing with containers. It is a mini PaaS that runs in a VM based on Docker containers and it is free for small usages.

    2. Re:What is Docker and why should you care? by jrbrtsn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Windows NT has always had so-called "personalities" and Posix has been available as a personality for decades"

      Which is why everyone who actually uses Posix on Windows downloads Cygwin. Oh, wait a minute....

    3. Re:What is Docker and why should you care? by just_another_sean · · Score: 1

      The posix subsystem was usable on NT4. Not so much since then. The latest version is basically a wrapper around the GNU tools and is more about Microsoft checking boxes on government forms when bidding on projects than anything else.

      Cygwin is not perfect but I'd say it has far less issues than what MS offers.

      Network authentication for UNIX systems relies on the insecure NIS protocol (LDAP- and Kerberos-based authentication require a third-party solution). Microsoft has released several hotfixes for Windows Services for UNIX, and at least one Security Update (KB939778). The GNU Project utilities are several versions older than the latest ones. A separate port of the up-to-date Debian utilities was started in 2007, but apparently abandoned in 2009.[26] Several of the text processing utilities in SUA (e.g. awk) are not compatible with Unicode or wide character text files.

      I can't think of one application where Cygwin would not be far more beneficial than MS's half ass attempt at being Unixy.

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  17. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by jbolden · · Score: 1

    I suspect it is classic cross platform porting. Platform X provides Y service. Platform A provides services B and C which are like Y so make the changes to the code to support the B/C combination. Windows clearly has a layered kernel and VM technologies. Azure has many of the services of OpenStack. It probably is a complex project but two digit number of man years, nothing outside the realm of what Microsoft can afford.

  18. the registry by jbolden · · Score: 1

    Forgot to mention registry. What I suspect is a mini registry is universally shared with file locations and settings another program that allows small writes to individual entries. So a registry lookup hits two databases not just one.

    1. Re:the registry by afidel · · Score: 2

      The registry has always been multi-tenant, even on a standard box with one user it's 5-6 files depending on OS version, and on a terminal server there can be hundreds of registry files open at the same time, plus registry redirection and virtualization is already part of App-V.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    2. Re:the registry by jbolden · · Score: 1

      So App-V is a lot like Docker. It wouldn't shock me if Docker / Windows ends up being a mixture of the two code bases. Very good point.

  19. Microsoft Docker ? by lippydude · · Score: 1

    How soon will it be before Microsoft 'invents' its own version of Docker and starts charging Open Docker for using Microsoft patented technology?

  20. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

    Strainers are like baskets - I aren't they all receptacles with leaks?

    Actually I know shit all about "Docker" and haven't bothered to understand "application virtualization" or how it differs from "server virtualization". Let's not get to docker as a specific app virt with defined constraints and capabilities.

    Hey! Let me add this piece of non-information, related to my opening statement: "colander".

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  21. Re:made for each other. by fnj · · Score: 1

    Looks like you hit a nerve there with the shills.

  22. Re:made for each other. by styrotech · · Score: 1

    I speak fluent cunt, allow me to translate.

    Thanks, we needed some help from a cunning linguist.

  23. Re:made for each other. by tshawkins · · Score: 1

    I love docker, its great to work with, but i have one concern with its use of dockerhub, the worse case scenario being somebody like the NSA getting in there and attaching to the os integration libs in the os api stubs. Suddeny you get all your docker containers being vulnerable and phoning home. Has anybody looked at wether that could be a problem. It would be a fat juicy target for them. People are putting a lot of trust in a bunch of images that are outside of thier control and verification.

  24. WINE by staalmannen · · Score: 1

    Would it not have made more sense to port wine to windows and make portable apps in the form of a WINEPREFIX?

    1. Re:WINE by jbolden · · Score: 1

      Wine doesn't add anything here. These servers have license for the Microsoft binaries. They don't need to translate Windows API calls into POSIX calls you can just execute against the Windows API.

    2. Re: WINE by staalmannen · · Score: 1

      No ofcourse not. I was more thinking of the WINEPREFIX part ... And perhaps greater legacy win16/win32 compatibility than that found in Windows.

  25. Re:made for each other. by jbolden · · Score: 1

    If the host OS is compromised all the containers are compromised. But remember this was a Linux solution so the host OS is Linux. So the problem is the same with or without Docker.

  26. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    I've suspected such things were being posted by you for some time. Sorry to be proven correct. Welcome to my Strangers list. Been nice knowing you, I guess.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  27. How Does Docker Work? by pscottdv · · Score: 1

    When I first heard about Docker, it looked to me like it was a set of tools to simplify the setup and management of chroots. But this announcement makes it look like there may be more to it. Can someone explain to me the difference between a docker container and a chroot?

    --

    this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice

  28. Re:what the hell could this possibly mean by cgimusic · · Score: 1

    Well please explain then. I thought Docker was LXC based. Does Windows Server's kernel have something like LXC built in?