Docker at DEVIntersection 2018

Docker will be at DEVIntersection 2018 in Las Vegas the first week in December. DEVIntersection now in its fifth year, brings Microsoft leaders, engineers and industry experts together to educate, network, and share their expertise with developers. This year DEVIntersection will have a Developer, SQL Server and AI/Azure tracks integrated into a single event. Docker be featured at DEVIntersection via the following sessions:

Modernizing .NET Applications with Docker on Azure

Derrick Miller, a Docker Senior Solutions Engineer, will deliver a session focused on using containers as a modernization path for traditional applications, including how to select Windows Server 2008 applications for containerization, implementation tips, and common gotchas.

Depend on Docker – Get It Done with Docker on Azure

Alex Iankoulski, a Docker Captain, will highlight how how Baker Hughes, a GE Company, uses Docker to transform software development and delivery. Be inspired by the story of software professionals and scientists who were enabled by Docker to use a common language and work together to create a sophisticated platform for the Oil & Gas Industry. Attendees will see practical examples of how Docker is deployed on Azure.

Docker for Web Developers

Dan Wahlin, a Microsoft MVP and Docker Captain, Continue reading

Supercharging my CLI

I spent a lot of time in the terminal. I can’t really explain why; for many things it just feels faster and more comfortable to do them via the command line interface (CLI) instead of via a graphical point-and-click interface. (I’m not totally against GUIs, for some tasks they’re far easier.) As a result, when I find tools that make my CLI experience faster/easier/more powerful, that’s a big boon. Over the last few months, I’ve added some tools to my Fedora laptop that have really added some power and flexibility to my CLI environment. In this post, I want to share some details on these tools and how I’m using them.

The tools I’ve adopted and that I’ll discuss in this post are:

• powerline-go for an informative CLI prompt
• rg for faster content searches
• fd for faster filename searches
• fzf for fuzzy command history access and faster directory navigation

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

A More Informative Shell Prompt

There’s been quite a few articles written about powerline, a Python-based utility that provides a much more informative shell prompt. Instead of going down the traditional powerline route, I found powerline-go—a small, statically linked Continue reading

DockerCon Hallway Track Is Back – Schedule One Today

The Hallway Track is coming back to DockerCon Europe in Barcelona. DockerCon Hallway Track is an innovative platform that helps you find like-minded people to meet one-on-one and schedule knowledge sharing conversations based on shared topics of interest. We’ve partnered with e180 to provide the next level of conference attendee networking. Together, we believe that some of the most valuable conversations can come from hallway encounters, and that we can unlock greatness by learning from each other. After the success at past DockerCons, we’re happy to grow this idea further in Barcelona.

DockerCon is all about learning new things and connecting with the community. The Hallway Track will help you meet and share knowledge with Docker Staff, other attendees, Speakers, and Docker Captains through structured networking.

To participate in Hallway Tracks:

1. Explore the Market – where all participants post the knowledge offers of topics they are willing to share, or questions they want to brainstorm.
2. Pick a topic from the list (and/or create your own offer or question).
3. Schedule your Hallway Tracks and meet in person at the Hallway Track Lounge!

If you are interested in attending DockerCon please register soon! If you are already registered and want Continue reading

Introducing Docker Engine 18.09

Last week, we launched Docker Enterprise 2.1 – advancing our leadership in the enterprise container platform market. That platform is built on Docker Engine 18.09 which was also released last week for both Community and Enterprise users. Docker Engine 18.09 represents a significant advancement of the world’s leading container engine, introducing new architectures and features that improve container performance and accelerate adoption for every type of Docker user –  whether you’re a developer, an IT admin, working at a startup or at a large, established company.

Built on containerd

Docker Engine – Community and Docker Engine – Enterprise both ship with containerd 1.2. Donated and maintained by Docker and under the auspices of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), containerd is being adopted as the primary container runtime across multiple platforms and clouds, while progressing towards Graduation in CNCF.

BuildKit Improvements

Docker Engine 18.09 also includes the option to leverage BuildKit. This is a new Build architecture that improves performance, storage management, and extensibility while also adding some great new features:

• Performance improvements: BuildKit includes a re-designed concurrency and caching model that makes it much faster, more precise and portable. When tested against the Continue reading

Integrating Ansible and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta

Red Hat is proud to announce that Ansible supports managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta hosts. Before you can manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta nodes with Ansible 2.7, though, you need to set the appropriate python interpreter. Ansible allows you to manage a huge range of hosts and devices, from legacy systems to beta-release testing platforms, by working with both Python 2 and Python 3. However, with Ansible 2.7 managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta, you must define which Python to use. When Ansible 2.8 is released, we plan for Ansible to automatically discover the correct Python to use on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta hosts.

Setting the Python interpreter on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta managed nodes

You can define the python interpreter Ansible should use on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta nodes with an inventory host_var, a group_var, a play, or an ad-hoc command. You must do this on every Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 node just as you would for any Python3 enabled host. To set the python interpreter in your inventory with a host_var:

[RHEL8hosts]
RHEL8.example.com ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/libexec/platform-python

This example directs Ansible to use Continue reading

Docker and MuleSoft Partner to Accelerate Innovation for Enterprises

A convergence of forces in SaaS, IoT, cloud, and mobile have placed unprecedented requirements on businesses to accelerate innovation to meet those rapidly changing preferences. The big don’t eat the small, the fast eat the slow.

The industry has offered several solutions to this acceleration problem – from working harder to outsourcing and devops, but none of those solutions have really offered the levels of acceleration needed. The reason: there is too much friction slowing the art of the possible.

Docker and MuleSoft remove friction in the innovation process, from ideation all the way to deployment. MuleSoft provides a tops down architectural approach, with API-first design and implementation. The Docker approach is bottoms up from the perspective of the application workload with containerization, to both modernize traditional applications and create of new applications.  

Marrying those two approaches combined with the platform, tools and methodology, enable both organizations to help your business accelerate faster than ever before. Docker and MuleSoft bridge the chasm between infrastructure and services in a way never before achieved in the industry.

Together, Docker and MuleSoft accelerate legacy application modernization and new application delivery while reducing IT complexity and costs.

• Modernize traditional applications quickly without code Continue reading

Introducing Docker’s Windows Server Application Migration Program

Last week, we announced the Docker Windows Server Application Migration Program, designed to help companies quickly and easily migrate and modernize legacy Windows Server 2008 applications while driving continuous innovation across any application, anywhere.

We recognize that Windows Server 2008 is one of the most widely used operating systems today and the coming end-of-support in January 2020 leaves IT organizations with few viable options to cost-effectively secure their legacy applications and data. The Docker Windows Server Application Migration Program represents the best and only way to containerize and secure legacy Windows Server applications while enabling software-driven business transformation. With this new program, customers get:

• Docker Enterprise: Leading Container Platform and only one for Windows Server applications.
  Docker Enterprise is the leading container platform in the industry– familiar to millions of developers and IT professionals. It’s also the only one that runs Windows Server applications, with support for Windows Server 2016, 1709, 1803 and soon, 2019 (in addition to multiple Linux distributions.) Organizations routinely save 50% or more through higher server consolidation and reduced hardware and licensing costs when they containerize their existing applications with Docker Enterprise.

• Industry-proven tools & services: Easily discover, containerize, and migrate with immediate Continue reading

Technology Short Take 106

Welcome to Technology Short Take #106! It’s been quite a while (over a month) since the last Tech Short Take, as this one kept getting pushed back. Sorry about that, folks! Hopefully I’ve still managed to find useful and helpful links to include below. Enjoy!

Networking

• Julia Evans provides some Envoy basics. Envoy is a useful project with which to be familiar; it serves as the data plane for the Istio service mesh, and it is the data plane for Heptio’s Contour ingress controller (and, by extension, Heptio’s Gimbal multi-cluster routing solution).
• Continuing on that Envoy theme, you may find this article by Matt Klein—one of the primary authors of Envoy—helpful in understanding some of the concepts behind modern load balancing and proxying. Many of these concepts had direct impacts on the design of Envoy.

Servers/Hardware

• The Intel Management Engine (ME) has received a bit of attention as a potential security vulnerability; in this article, authors Maxim Goryachy and Mark Ermolov expose some new concerns around the Intel ME and its undocumented Manufacturing Mode.
• Serve The Home takes a critical look at the Bloomberg Supermicro stories, debunking or at least calling into question many details of the Continue reading

Introducing Docker Enterprise 2.1 – Advancing Our Container Platform Leadership

Today, we’re excited to announce Docker Enterprise 2.1 – the leading enterprise container platform in the market and the only one designed for both Windows and Linux applications. When Docker Enterprise 2.1 is combined with our industry-proven tools and services in the new Windows Server application migration program, organizations get the best platform for securing and modernizing Windows Server applications, while building a foundation for continuous innovation across any application, anywhere.

In addition to expanded support for Windows Server, this latest release further extends our leadership position by introducing advancements across key enterprise requirements of choice, agility and security.

Choice: Expanding Support for Windows Server and New Kubernetes Features

Docker Enterprise 2.1 adds support for Windows Server 1709, 1803 and Windows Server 2019* in addition to Windows Server 2016. This means organizations can take advantage of the latest developments for Docker Enterprise for Windows Server Containers while supporting a broad set of Windows Server applications.

• Smaller image sizes: The latest releases of Windows Server support much smaller image sizes which means improved performance downloading base images and building applications, contributing to faster application delivery and lower storage costs.
• Improved compatibility requirements: With Windows Server 1709 and beyond, Continue reading

The Push to Modernize at William & Mary

At William & Mary, our IT infrastructure team needs to be nimble enough to support a leading-edge research university — and deliver the stability expected of a 325 year old institution. We’re not a large school, but we have a long history. We’re a public university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, and founded in 1693, making us the second-oldest institution of higher education in America. Our alumni range from three U.S. presidents to Jon Stewart.

The Linux team in the university’s central IT department is made up of 5 engineers. We run web servers, DNS, LDAP, the backend for our ERP system, components of the content management system, applications for administrative computing, some academic computing, plus a long list of niche applications and middleware. In a university environment with limited IT resources, legacy applications and infrastructure are expensive and time-consuming to keep going.

Some niche applications are tools built by developers in university departments outside of IT. Others are academic projects. We provide infrastructure for all of them, and sometimes demand can ramp up quickly. For instance, an experimental online course catalog was discovered by our students during a registration period. Many students decided they liked the experimental version Continue reading

Ansible and Infoblox: Roles Deep Dive

As Sean Cavanaugh mentioned in his earlier Infoblox blog post, the release of Ansible 2.5 introduced a lookup plugin, a dynamic inventory script, and five modules that allow for Infoblox automation. A combination of these modules and lookups in a role provides a powerful DNS automation framework.

Summary

Today we are going to demonstrate how automating Infoblox Core Network Services using Ansible can help make managing IP addresses and routing traffic across your network easy, quick, and reliable. Your network systems for virtualization and cloud require rapid provisioning life cycles; Infoblox helps you manage those lifecycles. When paired with Infoblox, Ansible lets you automate that work. Ansible’s integration with Infoblox is flexible and powerful: you can automate Infoblox tasks with modules or with direct calls to the Infoblox WAPI REST API.

This post will walk you through six real-world scenarios where Ansible and Infoblox can streamline your network tasks:

1. Creating a provider in one place that is reusable across a collection of roles.
2. Expanding your network by creating a new subnet with a forward DNS zone. Ansible modules for Infoblox make this common two-part task simple.
3. Creating a reverse DNS zone, for example, to flag email from any Continue reading

Docker Certified Logging Containers and Plugins from Partners

The Docker Certified Technology Program is designed for ecosystem partners and customers to recognize Containers and Plugins that excel in quality, collaborative support and compliance. Docker Certification gives organizations enterprises an easy way to run trusted software and components in containers on the Docker Enterprise container platform with support from both Docker and the publisher.  

In this review, we’re looking at Docker Logging Containers and Plugins. Docker Enterprise provides built-in logging drivers to help users get information from docker nodes, running containers and services. The Docker Engine also exposes a Docker Logging Plugin API for use by Partner Docker logging plugins. The user’s needs are solved by innovations from the extensive Docker ecosystem that extend Docker’s logging capabilities which provide complete log management solutions that include searching, visualizing, monitoring, and alerting.

These solutions are validated by both Docker and the partner company and integrated into a seamless support pipeline that provide customers the world class support they have become accustomed to when working with Docker.

Check out the latest certified Docker Logging Containers and Plugins that are now available from our partners on Docker Store:

• Elastic – Elasticsearch Logging container 
• Sematext – Sematext Agent Monitoring and Continue reading

Docker Achieves FIPS 140-2 Validation

We are excited to share that we have achieved formal FIPS 140-2 validation (Certificate #3304) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for our Docker Enterprise Edition Crypto Library. With this validation and industry-recognized seal of approval for cryptographic modules, we are able to further deliver on the fundamental confidentiality, integrity and availability objectives of information security and provide our commercial customers with a validated and secure platform for their applications. As required by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and other regulatory technology frameworks like HIPAA and PCI, FIPS 140-2 is an important validation mechanism for protecting the sensitivity and privacy of information in mission-critical systems.

As we highlighted in a previous blog post, Docker Engine – Enterprise version 18.03 and above includes this now-validated crypto module. This module has been validated at FIPS 140-2 Level 1. The formal Docker Enterprise Edition Crypto Library’s Security Policy calls out the specific security functions in Docker Engine – Enterprise supported by this module and includes the following:

• ID hashes
• Swarm Mode distributed state store and Raft log (securely stores Docker Secrets and Docker Configs)
• Swarm Mode overlay networks (control plane only)
• Swarm Mode mutual TLS implementation
• Docker daemon socket Continue reading

Spousetivities at DockerCon EU 18

DockerCon EU 18 is set to kick off in early December (December 3-5, to be precise!) in Barcelona, Spain. Thanks to Docker’s commitment to attendee families—something for which I have and will continue to commend them—DockerCon will offer both childcare (as they have in years past) and spouse/partner activities via Spousetivities. Let me just say: Spousetivities in Barcelona rocks. Crystal lines up a great set of activities that really cannot be beat.

Here’s some details on what’s available in Barcelona for DockerCon EU 18:

• On Monday, December 3, there will be a private tour of Costa Brava and Girona. Girona is an extremely well-preserved medieval walled city dating back to the first century! If you’re a fan of history, this is one not to miss. The tour will, of course, include an amazing lunch in a traditional local restaurant.
• Tuesday, December 4, participants will do a combined Barcelona city tour along with a visit to the famous La Sagrada Familia. The city tour will include stops to sample a wide variety of tapas in local venues. You’ll also get to visit La Sagrada Familia, which is a definite must-see if you’ve never visited before.
• Wrapping up the events on Continue reading

More on Setting up etcd with Kubeadm

A while ago I wrote about using kubeadm to bootstrap an etcd cluster with TLS. In that post, I talked about one way to establish a secure etcd cluster using kubeadm and running etcd as systemd units. In this post, I want to focus on a slightly different approach: running etcd as static pods. The information on this post is intended to build upon the information already available in the Kubernetes official documentation, not serve as a replacement.

For reference, the Kubernetes official documentation has a write-up on using kubeadm to establish an etcd cluster with etcd running as static pods. For Kubernetes 1.12.x (the current version as of this writing), that information is here; for Kubernetes 1.11.x, that same information is here.

When using these instructions for use with Kubernetes 1.11.x, the official guide leaves something out that is very important: reconfiguring the kubelet to operate in a standalone fashion (without the Kubernetes control plane). This information is present in the 1.12.x documentation, but it applies to both versions.

Now, lest you think you can just follow the 1.12.x documentation for a 1.11.x cluster, you need Continue reading

The Top 6 Questions You Asked on Containerizing Production Apps

We recently hosted IDC research manager Gary Chen as a guest speaker on a webinar where he shared results from a recent IDC survey on container and container platform adoption in the enterprise. IDC data shows that more organizations are deploying applications into production using containers, driving the need for container platforms like Docker Enterprise that integrate broad management capabilities including orchestration, security and access controls.

The audience asked a lot of great questions about both the IDC data and containerizing production applications. We picked the top questions from the webinar and recapped them here.

If you missed the webinar, you can watch the webinar on-demand here.

Top Questions from the Webinar

Q: What are the IDC stats based on?

A: IDC ran a survey of 300+ container deployers from companies with more than 1,000 employees and have primary responsibility for container infrastructure in the US and modeled it from a variety of data sources they collect about the industry. 

Q: IDC mentioned that 54% of containerized applications are traditional apps. Is there is simple ‘test’ to see if an app can be containerized easily?

Source: IDC, Container Infrastructure Market Assessment: Bridging Legacy and Cloud-Native Architectures — User Survey Continue reading

Docker Certified Containers from Monitoring Partners

The Docker Certified Technology Program is designed for ecosystem partners and customers to recognize Containers and Plugins that excel in quality, collaborative support and compliance. Docker Certification gives organizations enterprises an easy way to run trusted software and components in containers on the Docker Enterprise container platform with support from both Docker and the publisher.

In this review, we’re looking at solutions to monitor Docker containers. Docker enables developers to iterate faster with software architectures consisting of many microservices. This poses a challenge to traditional monitoring solutions as the target processes are no longer statically allocated or tied to particular hosts. Monitoring solutions are now expected to track ephemeral and rapidly scaling sets of containers. The Docker Engine exposes APIs for container metadata, lifecycle events, and key performance metrics. Partner Monitoring solutions  collect both system and Docker container events and metrics in real time to monitor the health and performance of the customers entire infrastructure, applications and services. These solutions are validated by both Docker and the partner company and integrated into a seamless support pipeline that provide customers the world class support they have become accustomed to when working with Docker.

Check out the latest certified Docker Monitoring Continue reading

3 Customer Stories You Don’t Want to Miss at DockerCon Barcelona 2018

One of the great things about DockerCon is the opportunity to learn from your peers and find out what they’re doing. We’re pleased to announce several of the sessions in our Customer Stories track. In the track, you’ll hear from your peers who are using Docker Enterprise to modernize legacy applications, build new services and products, and transform the customer experience.

These are just a few of the sessions in the catalog today. You can browse the full list of sessions here. We also have a few more we’ll announce over the coming weeks (some customers just like to keep things under wraps for a little longer).

Desigual Transforms the In-Store Experience with Docker Enterprise Containers Across Hybrid Cloud

Mathias Kriegel, IT Ops Lead and Cloud Architect

Joan Anton Sances, Software Architect

We’re particularly excited to have a local company share their story at DockerCon. In this session, find out how Docker Enterprise has helped Desigual, a global $1 billion fashion retailer headquartered in Barcelona, transform the in-store customer experience with a new “shopping assistant” application.

Not Because We Can, But Because We Have To: Tele2 Containerized Journey to the Cloud
Dennis Ekkelenkamp, IT Infrastructure Manager
Gregory Bohncke, Technical Architect

How Continue reading

Validating RAML Files Using Docker

Back in July of this year I introduced Polyglot, a project whose only purpose is to provide a means for me to learn more about software development and programming (areas where am I sorely lacking real knowledge). In the limited spare time I’ve had to work on Polyglot in the ensuing months, I’ve been building out an API specification using RAML, and in this post I’ll share how I use Docker and a Docker image to validate my RAML files.

Since I was (am) using Visual Studio Code as my primary text editor/development environment these days, I started out by looking for a RAML extension that would provide some sort of linting/validation functionality. I found an extension to do RAML syntax highlighting, which seemed like a reasonable first step.

After a bit more research, I found that there was a raml-cli NPM package that one could use to validate RAML files from the command line. I was a bit leery of installing an NPM package on my system, so I thought, “Why not use a Docker container for this?” It will keep my system clean of excess/unnecessary packages and dependencies, and it will provide some practice with Continue reading

Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 19, 2018

HAMY.IO (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the https://hamy.io website (hereinafter referred to as the “Service”).

This page informs you regarding our policies concerning the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data.

We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, the terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://hamy.io

At HAMY.IO, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use our Service, and how we safeguard your information.

Definitions

• Service: Service is the https://hamy.io website operated by HAMY.IO
• Personal Data: Personal Data means data about a living individual who can be identified from those data (or from those and other information either in our possession or likely to come into our possession).
• Usage Data: Usage Data is data Continue reading