Putting Docker Enterprise Edition on the Map with Kadaster and Capgemini

 As a government organization for the Netherlands, Kadaster is responsible for collecting and registering property and land rights, ships, aircraft and telecom networks. An important service for its citizens, registry information is available predominantly through online web services.

Beginning in 2011, Kadaster created a vision for their next generation technology platform which included a combination of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS services. Today, Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE) is an essential part of this solution. At DockerCon Europe, Rick Peters from CapGemini discussed how they worked with Kadaster to deliver an agile application platform that now runs some of the most demanding workloads for the Dutch organization.

You can watch the talk here: 

Growth of Private Cloud Fuels Hunger for New Technologies

Beginning in 2012, Kadaster created one of the most successful private clouds in the Netherlands. Starting out as 300 virtual machines, the team did not think they would surpass 750 virtual machines, but blew well past that figure in just two years.

That rapid expansion was fueled by the easier self-service delivery model and the ability deploy apps more regularly and faster. Initially focused as a Java runtime platform powered by virtualization, the platform objectives shifted over Continue reading

How Docker Enterprise Edition Helps Open Doors at Assa Abloy

ASSA ABLOY is the world’s largest lock manufacturer with 47,000 employees worldwide and well-known brands like Yale, Sargent and Assa in their portfolio. The vision for ASSA ABLOY is to become the most innovative provider of door opening solutions through growth of electro-mechanical and digital entry solutions. With increasingly global operations to deal with as well, ASSA ABLOY recognized the opportunity to leverage public cloud, microservices and containers to fuel this digital transformation.

Jan Hedstrom, Cloud Infrastructure Architect in the Shared Technologies department at ASSA ABLOY, and Patrick Van Der Bleek, Solutions Engineer at Docker, presented at DockerCon Europe how ASSA ABLOY leveraged Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE)  as their central secure container management platform for their global hardware and software workflow . 

You can watch their entire talk here:

Journey from Docker CE to Docker EE

Some developers at ASSA ABLOY started using Docker for microservice development back in 2014, but it was uncoordinated with manual, scripted deployments of containers onto individual servers, inconsistent practices, no separation between teams, and without any image standards. Additionally, ASSA ABLOY knew that going to a public cloud like AWS would give them a “datacenter with superpowers”, but they were concerned about cloud Continue reading

Shifting Legacy WebLogic Apps to Docker Enterprise Edition for Improved Operations

Founded in 1792, Alm. Brand is a Danish insurance and banking company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark and one of the oldest companies to have ever presented at any DockerCon. Sune Keller, an IT architect, and Loke Johannessen, Systems Specialist, rode their bikes to DockerCon Europe 2017 to demonstrate how they helped lift and shift their legacy WebLogic applications to Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE).  You can watch their entire talk here:

Seeking Operational Stability for Legacy Apps

Alm. Brand started working with Docker EE after hearing about it at DockerCon 2015 (known as Docker Datacenter back then). After successfully deploying the first set of new greenfield apps in their Docker EE environment, Alm. Brand wanted to tackle their existing WebLogic applications which were causing the operations team the biggest headaches. The team operated the WebLogic applications in a large cluster, all running on the same JVM. When an app crashed, it would often crash the entire JVM or hang the entire cluster, making it hard to identify which application was the root cause. The setup was also very brittle and slow as they could only deploy one app at a time to the cluster.

With the skills Continue reading

Integrating Docker EE Into Société Générale’s Existing Enterprise IT Systems

Société Générale is a 153-year old French multinational bank that believes technology and innovation are key to enriching the customer experience and advancing economic development. A few years ago, the bank started a project to define their next generation application platform that would help them get 80% of their applications running in the cloud by 2020. Société Générale chose Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE) to be the foundation of their application platform and began working with it 15 months ago. This year at DockerCon Europe, Stephan Dechoux, DevOps architect, and Thomas Boussardon, Middleware Specialist, shared their journey over this time integrating Docker Enterprise Edition [Docker EE] into Société Générale IT systems.

You can watch their breakout session here:

A New Platform For Today and Tomorrow

Société Générale has a diverse application portfolio that includes many different types of applications, including legacy monolithic apps, SOA, distributed apps and REST APIs. The bank is also a global organization with teams and data centers around the world. A primary goal  was to deliver a new application platform to improve time-to-market and lower costs, while accelerating innovation. Initially Société Générale considered off-the-shelf PaaS solutions, but realized that these were better suited for greenfield applications Continue reading

How GlaxoSmithKline is Accelerating Science with Docker Enterprise Edition

GlaxoSmithKline is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in the United Kingdom. Their company mission is “to help people do more, feel better, and live longer”. One way they are doing that is by using data science to find new drug formulations that can improve lives. At DockerCon Europe, Ranjith Raghunath, the director of Big Data Solutions and Lindsay Edwards, the head of Respiratory Data Sciences at GlaxoSmithKline presented how Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE) is helping them accelerate drug discovery through a project called Edge Node On Demand.

Letting Science Drive Technology at GlaxoSmithKline

Leveraging Data Science for Improved Outcomes

The biggest challenge in pharmaceutical research is that hundreds of drugs formulations need to be created to take one successfully to market only 3% of formulated molecules actually become medicine. Lindsay Edwards heads a Data Science group that is focused on respiratory illnesses like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and asthma. His group uses big data analytics to mine research data and previous patient trial data to arrive at results more rapidly.

However, data science is a new and emerging field. There are new software tools and open source data analytics solutions coming to market all the time and different hardware Continue reading

Finnish Railways and Accenture Partner to Modernize Key Transportation Apps  

VR Group is the state-owned company that runs Finnish Railways, and provides 82 million passenger train rides and transports 36 million tons of goods per year. The 150+ year old transportation business is broken into separate divisions, each with their own technology departments. Finnish Railways does not have an in-house development team, so each division leverages external vendors and partners for their application development needs.

On Day 2 of DockerCon Europe, Markus Niskanen, Integration Manager at VR Group, and Oscar Renalias, Solutions Architect at Accenture presented their story on how they worked together to modernize critical business applications for Finnish Railways, including the reservation and commuter applications.

Partnership Drives Faster Results

Finnish Railways began working with Accenture, a long-time partner, to design a new common application platform based on Docker Enterprise Edition (EE). Leveraging Accenture’s Container Migration Factory, Finnish Railways had access to hundreds of Docker-trained Accenture architects which meant that this project could be delivered more efficiently. For example, Accenture has customized Terraform scripts that set up a Docker EE environment in AWS in about 25 minutes.

They started with the old reservation system which was running on mainframe and a legacy commuter service application. They rewrote these applications with microservices Continue reading

A Day in the Life of a Docker Admin

About two months ago, we celebrated SysAdmin Day and kicked off our learning series for IT professionals. So far we’ve gone through the basics of containers and how containers are delivering value back to the company through cost savings. Now we begin the next stage of the journey by introducing how to deploy and operate containerized applications.

For the next few weeks, we are going to relate typical IT administrative tasks that many of you are familiar with to the tasks of a Docker admin. In the end, containerized applications are still applications and it is still primarily the responsibility of IT to secure and manage them. That is the same regardless of if the application runs in a container or not.

In this “A Day in the LIfe of a Docker Admin” series, we will discuss how common IT tasks translate to the world of Docker, such as:

• Managing .NET apps and migrating them off Windows Server 2008
• How networking with containers work and how to build an agile and secure network for containers
• How to achieve a secure and compliant application environment for any industry
• Integrating Docker with monitoring and logging tools

As a first step, let’s make Continue reading

Secure Multi-Tenancy at Scale with Docker Enterprise Edition

With the latest release of Docker Enterprise Edition (EE), enterprise organizations are able to extend the benefits of containers across their entire application portfolio. Docker EE enables rapid modernization of traditional Windows and Linux applications as well as Linux applications running on IBM Z mainframes. By addressing all of these applications, Docker EE provides the opportunity to standardize around a common packaging format for greater portability, agility, and with an additional layer of security, resulting in more teams bringing their workloads into Docker EE.

The key to operating this diverse environment is to have a way to secure and isolate the applications and the multiple teams who build, ship, and deploy them. This release of Docker Enterprise Edition makes it possible for organizations to modernize traditional applications of every variety and to do so in a secure manner that aligns to complex organizational needs.

Building a Secure Software Supply Chain for Windows Applications

Windows applications make up about half of all enterprise applications. Docker has been working closely with Microsoft to ensure that the same security benefits that are available to Linux containers are also available to Windows Server containers. When Windows containers are managed with Docker EE, organizations Continue reading

What’s New in Docker Enterprise Edition Webinar Recap

The latest release of Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) allows organizations to modernize Windows, Linux, and Linux-on-mainframe applications—all with minimal disruption. The release also allows organizations to run containers at scale with advanced capabilities around secure multi-tenancy and policy-based automation.

In last week’s webinar, we walked through the key new features of this release and saw a demo of Docker EE in action. If you missed the webinar, you can watch it here:

Here are the top questions from the webinar:

Q: Can you provide more information about Windows support? Which version of Windows? Is this only available with Docker Enterprise Edition?

A: You can run Windows Docker containers either with Docker Community Edition for Windows (PC) which supports Windows 10 or Docker Enterprise Edition for Windows Server 2016 (including Nano Server). Docker EE Basic is included with the Windows Server 2016 license, and you also have the option to upgrade to EE Standard or EE Advanced for Windows Server 2016 to get complete lifecycle management capabilities, Docker Trusted Registry, and advanced security features like image signing and scanning.

Q: Is it possible to deploy the Windows containers on top of a native Linux host?

A: As a form of packaging Continue reading

Test Drive Docker Enterprise Edition at VMworld 2017

Docker will be at VMworld 2017 next week (August 27-31) in Las Vegas to highlight new developments with Docker Enterprise Edition (EE), the only Container as a Service (CaaS) platform for managing and securing Windows, Linux and mainframe applications across any infrastructure, both on premises and in the cloud.

Stop by Booth #1206 to learn more about:

• How VMs and containers work together for improved application lifecycle management
• How containers and Docker EE can help IT with day-to-day maintenance and operations tasks
• How IT can lead modernization efforts with Docker EE and become drivers of innovation in their organizations

Just as VMware vSphere simplified the management of VMs and made virtualization the de facto standard inside the data center, Docker is driving containerization of your entire application portfolio with Docker EE and helping organizations like yours to achieve their cloud and app modernization goals without requiring you to change how you operate.

Test Drive Docker EE in the Booth

Don’t miss the chance to get hands-on experience with Docker with our in-booth labs. Led by Docker experts, you will get to see for yourself how Docker brings all applications—traditional and cloud-native, Windows and Linux, on-prem and in Continue reading

Docker 101: Introduction to Docker webinar recap

Docker is standardizing the way to package applications, making it easier for developers to code and build apps on their laptop or workstation and for IT to manage, secure and deploy into a variety of infrastructure platforms

In last week’s webinar, Docker 101: An Introduction to Docker, we went from describing what a container is, all the way to what a production deployment of Docker looks like, including how large enterprise organizations and world-class universities are leveraging Docker Enterprise Edition (EE)  to modernize their legacy applications and accelerate public cloud adoption.

If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording here:

We ran out of time to go through everyone’s questions, so here are some of the top questions from the webinar:

­Q: How does Docker get access to platform resources, such as I/O, networking, etc.­ Is it a type of hypervisor?

A: Docker EE is not a type of hypervisor. Hypervisors create virtual hardware: they make one server appear to be many servers but generally know little or nothing about the applications running inside them. Containers are the opposite: they make one OS or one application server appear to be many isolated instances. Containers explicitly must know the Continue reading

IT Starts with Docker

Happy SysAdmin Day! Cheers to all of you who keep your organizations running, keep our data secure, respond at a moment’s notice and bring servers and apps back to life after a crash. Today we say, “Thank You!”

Anniversaries are a great time to reflect on accomplishments of the last year: the projects you’ve completed, the occasions you’ve saved your company money or time, the new technology you’ve learned. In a role like IT, so much can change each year as technology progresses and becomes more challenging to stay ahead of that curve. So this SysAdmin Day, we at Docker want to congratulate your past successes and prepare you for the year to come.

Containers are not just for developers anymore and Docker is the standard for packaging all kinds of applications – Windows, Linux, traditional, and microservices. Over the next few months, we’ll be covering how SysAdmins like yourself are enabling their organizations to innovate faster while saving their companies’ money by embracing containers with Docker Enterprise Edition.

Sign up here to start your journey and learn how IT Starts with Docker. 

This multi-part series will include:

• How Docker Enterprise Edition is helping IT organizations free up money Continue reading

Docker at Nutanix .NEXT Conference – Visit us at Booth #S11

Today marks the start of Nutanix .NEXT Conference in Washington, D.C., the annual conference for Nutanix customers and partners. One of the major themes of the conference is hybrid cloud, and Docker will be there to demonstrate how Docker Enterprise Edition delivers application portability across different infrastructure platforms through a complete enterprise-ready Container as a Service (CaaS) solution for IT.

Docker and Nutanix will also be highlighting the Nutanix Docker Volume Plug-in (DVP), a Docker Certified Plugin available in the Docker Store. This plugin connects Docker containers to enterprise-grade persistent storage from Nutanix even as the container is powered on, powered off, or moved to a new host. As part of the certification process, Docker and Nutanix validate that the plugin is built with Docker recommended best practices and passes an additional suite of API compliance testing and vulnerability scanning. Docker EE customers also have access to support from both Docker and Nutanix.

Watch a Demo of Docker EE at Nutanix .NEXT

For those heading to Nutanix .NEXT, be sure to swing by booth #S11 to learn more about this plugin as well as other IT use cases for EE. Watch a demo and Continue reading

Webinar Q&A: Docker Enterprise Edition Demo

Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) is designed for enterprise development and IT teams who build, ship and run business critical applications in production at scale. Docker EE provides a fully integrated solution that includes the container engine, built-in orchestration, a private registry, and container lifecycle management to help you build a secure software supply chain. As an enterprise-grade offering with access to SLA-backed technical support and validated integrations to leading 3rd party images, plug-ins, and infrastructure, Docker EE can help organizations deliver Containers as a Service (CaaS) to improve IT efficiency, make applications more portable for the public cloud, and more secure through a smaller attack surface and image signing and scanning.

Watch the following webinar as Moni Sallam and I highlight some key use cases for Docker Enterprise Edition and how it differs from Community Edition. Moni also provides a demo of how end-to-end container lifecycle management can be securely controlled through Docker EE.

Here are some of the top questions from the live session:

Q: Can we Dockerize Windows apps?

A: Yes! Docker has partnered with Microsoft to deliver a native Docker container platform with Windows Server 2016. Docker containers can also be run on Windows Server and Windows Continue reading

Docker Enterprise Edition Brings New Life Back to Legacy Apps at Northern Trust

Many organizations understand the value of building modern 12-factor applications with microservices. However, 90+% of applications running today are still traditional, monolithic apps. That is also the case for Northern Trust – a 128-year old financial services company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. At DockerCon 2017, Rob Tanner, Division Manager for Enterprise Middleware at Northern Trust, shared how they are using Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) to modernize their traditional applications to make them faster, safer, and more performant.

Bringing Agility and Security to Traditional Apps

Founded in 1889, Northern Trust is a global leader in asset servicing, asset management, and banking for personal and institutional clients. Their clients expect best-of-breed services and experiences from Northern Trust and Rob’s team plays a large role in delivering that. While their development teams are focused on microservices apps for greenfield projects, Rob is responsible for over 400 existing WebLogic, Tomcat, and .NET applications. Docker EE became the obvious choice to modernize these traditional apps and manage their incredibly diverse environment with a single solution.

Containerizing traditional applications with Docker EE gives Northern Trust a better way to manage them and some immediate benefits:

• Improved security: As a financial institution, security is a top priority. Continue reading

Docker Enterprise Edition Lights a New Spark of Innovation within MetLife

MetLife, the global provider of insurance, annuities, and employee benefit programs, will be celebrating it’s 150th birthday next year. Survival and success in their space depends on being agile and able to respond to changing market requirements. During the Day 2 General Session at DockerCon 2017, MetLife shared how they’re inspiring new innovation in their organization with Docker Enterprise Edition (EE).

Information Management is Core to MetLife

MetLife offers auto, home, dental, life, disability, vision, and health insurance to over 100 million customers across 50 countries. Their business relies on information – about policyholders, risk assessments, financial and market data, etc. Aaron Ades, AVP of Solutions Engineering at MetLife offers that they’ve been in the information management business for 150 years and have accumulated over 400 systems of record – some apps are over 30 years old.

The challenge for MetLife is that they still have a lot of legacy technology that they must work with. Aaron shared that there is still code running today that was first written in 1982, but they still need to deliver a modern experience on top of those legacy systems.

To hear more about how MetLife is staying ahead of their competition using Docker, Continue reading

Visa Inc. Gains Speed and Operational Efficiency with Docker Enterprise Edition

DockerCon 2017 was an opportunity to hear from customers across multiple industries and segments on how they are leveraging Docker technology to accelerate their business. In the keynote on Day 2 and also a breakout session that afternoon, Visa shared how Docker Enterprise Edition is empowering them on their mission is to make global economies safer by digitizing currency and making electronic payments available to everyone, everywhere.

Visa is the world’s largest retail electronic payment network that handles 130 billion transactions a year, processing $5.8 trillion annually. Swamy Kocherlakota, Global Head of Infrastructure and Operations, shared that Visa got here by expanding their global footprint which has put pressure on his organization which has remained mostly flat in headcount during that time. Since going into production with their Docker Containers-as-a-Service architecture 6 months ago, Mr. Kocherlakota has seen a 10x increase in scalability, ensuring that his organization will be able to support their overall mission and growth objectives well into the future.

Global Growth Fuels Need for A New Operating Model

In aligning his organization to the company mission, Swamy decided to focus on two primary metrics: Speed and Efficiency.

• Speed is tied to developer on boarding Continue reading