Coming Soon: Networking Features in Ansible 2.4

Wow, how time flies! Here we go with another Ansible Project release packed full of updates for automating network infrastructure. After spending the last year heavily focused on building much of the foundation for Ansible network integration, this release represents the beginning of the journey towards building more application-aware, declarative-based Ansible modules. This is an exciting time and on behalf of the entire Ansible community, including the Ansible network engineering team. I’m very pleased to share with you the enhancements and updates to network integration included with the forthcoming Ansible 2.4 open source release.

The initial introduction of network support was originally conceived to help operators focus on being able to execute configuration changes on network devices with a set of imperative-based configuration modules.

Today, the Ansible network modules are focused on pushing configuration statements to network devices. It was a small step, but an important one in the journey towards full configuration management of physical network devices.

Since then, we have turned our attention towards how to better help organizations become more agile in actively managing network configurations. Over the course of the Ansible 2.4 release, we have been phasing in a more intelligent approach to building Continue reading

Docker in Higher Education: Announcing Tools & Resources for Teachers

At the beginning of the summer we published a blog post announcing the Docker Student Developer Kit and Campus Ambassador program. The positive reception from students has been overwhelming and we were so excited to see hundreds of applications flood in!

Many teachers took notice of the enthusiasm of their students and began to reach out, asking us for tools, resources and support in using Docker in the classroom and adding Docker to their curriculum. To this end we have put together a free package for teachers!

Making use of this offer will enable teachers to effectively use and teach Docker in the classroom as we will be able to provide:

1. Free Tools: eliminating the need for students to install anything locally, thus saving you valuable class time
2. Resources: the most up to date presentations, hands-on labs, workshops etc. on every topic for every skill level
3. Support and recognition: you will have a dedicated contact at Docker to help you through the process and also be welcomed into the online Docker Teachers community where you can collaborate and learn from other educators

If you are a teacher at a higher-education institution who would like to unlock the benefits outlined 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

A Brief Look at VMware’s Three Cloud Approaches

I’m at VMworld 2017 this week (obviously, based on my tweets and blog posts), and in the general sessions Monday and yesterday VMware made a big deal about how VMware is approaching cloud computing and cloud services. However, as I’ve been talking to other attendees, it’s become clear to me that many people don’t understand the three-pronged approach VMware is taking.

I should start out by saying that this post hasn’t been officially reviewed by VMware (none of my stuff is) and may not align with the “approved” marketing approach, so keep that in mind. This is just me speaking.

As I see it, the three cloud approaches are as follows:

1. Private cloud
2. VMware Cloud on AWS
3. VMware Cloud Services for native cloud workloads

The first option (private cloud) is, I think, pretty much self-explanatory. VMware is offering VMware Cloud Foundation to help streamline some of the infrastructure management in this space, and then the VMware SDDC stack (vSphere, vSAN, and NSX) are layered on top. Couple that with a cloud management platform/automation platform such as OpenStack (VIO would be a good option) or vRealize Automation, and you have a private cloud. (I’m glossing over a few details, but you Continue reading

An Inside Look at the Docker Captains Program

Since launching the Docker Captains over a year ago, we’ve received a lot of questions: What is a Docker Captain? What do Captains do? How do I become a Captain? So who better to answer that than the Docker Captains themselves? At DockerCon Austin, we asked the Docker Captains to share their favorite thing about wearing the Captain’s hat.

What is a Captain?

Captains are Docker experts that are leaders in their communities, organizations or ecosystems. As Docker advocates, they are committed to sharing their knowledge and do so every chance they get!

What do Captains do?

Captains are advisors, ambassadors, coders, contributors, creators, tool builders, speakers, mentors, maintainers and super users and are required to be active stewards of Docker in order to remain in the program.

In addition to sharing their knowledge with the community, Captains provide insight and feedback to Docker. They have direct access to our technical teams, and are first to hear about and try upcoming features, product releases and big announcements.

What do Captains get? 

In return for their efforts, Captains get access to the existing captains community and Docker staff. They get ongoing training, private briefings and Slack chat channels where Captains Continue reading

Why You Should Attend AnsibleFest

It’s that time again! The time when automators from all over converge at the official event for all things Ansible — AnsibleFest San Francisco! Fresh off the heels from a packed house at AnsibleFest London in June, AnsibleFest San Francisco is shaping up to be the biggest AnsibleFest ever. With about a week before showtime, now’s the best time to start planning a trip to the “City by the Bay” for a fantastic event before it sells out.

To give a better idea of what to expect (and how to convince your manager to go), I’ve provided the top five reasons to go to AnsibleFest in San Francisco:

1. Expanded agenda and a session on Key Topics and Trends with Jim Whitehurst Red Hat CEO

We’ve heard your feedback, and listened: now more breakout sessions! We have made an unprecedented increase in sessions, up from 16 to 25, from customers, partners and the community. All session have been posted to the AnsibleFest agenda so you can see the better-than-ever lineup we have created.

2. All Ansible, all the time

Of course, we realize that Red Hat Summit is the company’s flagship event (I’ve been to seven of them), but Summit Continue reading

Liveblog: VMworld 2017 Day 2 Keynote

This is a liveblog of the day 2 keynote at VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas, NV. Unlike yesterday, I wasn’t accosted by the local facilities team trying to get a seat at a table in the bloggers/press/analyst area, so that’s an improvement over yesterday. While I’m aware of (most, if not all, of) the announcements that will be made today, I’m still looking forward to the keynote.

Promptly at 9am, Pat Gelsinger takes the stage to kick off the day 2 keynote. He quickly recaps yesterday’s announcements and activities, and then rapidly dives into day 2. First up is a “fireside chat” with Michael Dell.

Gelsinger brings Dell onto the stage and they dive into a number of questions submitted by folks.

• Gelsinger fields the first question, which is regarding VMware support. He calls on customers to be sure to let VMware know if support, services, products, etc., don’t meet their expectations. Gelsinger refers back to Skyline, which was brushed off yesterday, as a key component of improving VMware’s support mechanisms.
• Dell leads off the discussion on a question regarding quantum computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and other forward-looking efforts. Naturally, he positions his company (Dell Continue reading

Video Series: Modernizing .NET Apps for IT Pros

This is a new 5-part video series in Docker’s Modernize Traditional Apps (MTA) program, aimed at Microsoft IT Pros. The video series shows you how to move a .NET 3.5 app from Windows Server to a Windows Docker container and deploy it to a scalable, highly-available environment in the cloud – without any changes to the app.

Part 1 introduces the series, explaining what is meant by “traditional” apps and the problems they present. Traditional apps are built to run on a server, rather than on a modern application platform. They have common traits, like being complex to manage and difficult to deploy. A portfolio of traditional applications tends to under-utilize its infrastructure, and over-utilize the humans who manage it. Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) fixes that, giving you a consistent way to package, release and manage all your apps, without having to re-write them.

Part 2 shows how easy it is to move traditional apps to Docker EE. I start with an ASP.NET 3.5 WebForms application running on Windows Server 2003, and use Image2Docker to extract the app and package it as a Docker image. Then I run the application in a Docker Windows container on Continue reading

Liveblog: VMworld 2017 Day 1 Keynote

This is a liveblog of the day 1 keynote at VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas, NV. There was a bit of a kerfluffle regarding seating (the local facilities staff didn’t want to let me sit in the bloggers’ area because “you’re not a blogger”), but I managed to snag a seat anyway.

Prior to the keynote, a number of announcements were released; here’s a quick look at a few of them:

• VMware and AWS Announce Initial Availability of VMware Cloud on AWS
• VMware Integrated OpenStack 4.0 and vRealize Network Insight (vRNI) 3.5
• Availability of VMware Cloud Services (Discovery, Cost Insight, Network Insight, AppDefense, NSX Cloud, Wavefront) (this has been a big part of my work life for the last year, great to see them available)

Pat Gelsinger takes the stage at about 9:05am, after a very cool AR/VR demo. Gelsinger welcomes the crowd, and takes a minute to reflect upon his time at CEO of VMware. Gelsinger also takes a moment to talk about the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, and urges attendees to help support the recovery of that effort.

Gelsinger talks how “science fiction” is becoming “science fact”: exoskeletons, teleportation, and genetically modified organisms via CRISPR. Continue reading

Technology Short Take #86

Welcome to Technology Short Take #86, the latest collection of links, articles, and posts from around the web, focused on major data center technology areas. Enjoy!

Networking

• Csilla Bessenyei has a series of articles on step-by-step automation that you might find helpful. I found the articles at step 5, the benefits of Git for network engineers, but the previous four articles also look helpful.
• James Governor provides a useful explanation of a service mesh in the context of Istio and Linkerd; this is helpful for those of you out there who’ve heard the terms/names but haven’t had time to really dig in and understand what’s happening here.
• Speaking of service mesh: a couple related articles passed across my desk(top) recently. The first of these is an article on using Traefik with Kubernetes and Let’s Encrypt (throwing in a Consul back-end for the fun of it). The second is this post on Istio plus Linkerd, which talks about how to use Linkerd in conjunction with Istio to build a service mesh. (Do I need to talk about how understanding a service mesh is a good thing for networking professionals? That might be a good blog post topic right there! Continue reading

Moby Project and Open Source Summit North America

Docker will be at Open Source Summit from to highlight new development with the Moby Project and it’s various components: containerd, LinuxKit, InfraKit, Notary, etc.

Come see us at Booth #510 to learn more about:

• The different uses cases for the Moby Projects and components
• The difference between Docker and the Moby Project
• How to get started with each component

As part of the OSS NA, Docker is also organizing a Moby Summit on September 14, 2017. Following the success of the previous editions, we’ll keep the same format which consists of short technical talks / demos in the morning and Birds-of-a-Feather in the afternoon.

 We have an excellent line up of speakers in store for you and are excited to share the agenda below. We hope that these sessions inspire you to come participate in the Moby community and register for this Moby summit.

For those of you who can’t attend the summit we recommend the following sessions as part of the main event / tracks:

Building specialized container-based systems with Moby: a few use cases

Speaker: Patrick Chanezon

This talk will explain how you can leverage the Moby project to assemble your own Continue reading

Announcing new DockerCon Europe tracks, sessions, speakers and website!

The DockerCon Europe website has a fresh look and new sessions added. The DockerCon Review Committee is still working through announcing final sessions in each breakout track, but below is an overview of the tracks and content you’ll find this year in Copenhagen. To view abstracts in more detail check out the Agenda Page.

In case you missed it, we have two summits happening on Thursday, October 19th. The Moby Summit, a hands-on collaborative event for advanced container users who are actively maintaining, contributing or generally interested in the design and development of the Moby Project and it’s components. The Enterprise Summit, a full day event for enterprise IT practitioners who want to learn how they can embrace the journey to hybrid IT and implement a new strategy to help fund their modernization efforts.

We have an excellent line up of speakers in store for you and are excited to share the agenda below. We hope that these sessions inspire you to register to DockerCon Europe.

Using Docker

Using Docker sessions are introductory sessions for Docker users, dev and ops alike. Filled with practical advice, learnings, and insight, these sessions will help you get started with Docker or 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

My Three Favorite New Features in Docker Enterprise Edition

I’ve been at Docker for just over two years now, and I’ve worked with every version of Docker Enterprise Edition (née Docker Datacenter) since before there even was a Docker Enterprise Edition (EE). I’m more excited about this new release than any previous release.

There are several new features that are going to ease the management of your applications (both traditional and cloud-native) wherever you need them to run: the cloud or the data center, virtual or physical, Linux or Windows – and now even IBM Z mainframes.

It would take too long to discuss all of the new features, so with that in mind, I’m going to talk about my three favorite features in Docker EE 17.06.

Hybrid-OS Clusters

Docker and Microsoft introduced support for Windows Server containers last fall. This was a major milestone that helped Docker move towards the goal of embracing apps across the entirety of the data center. With this latest release Docker extends hybrid OS operations even further: IT admins can now build and manage clusters comprised of Linux, Windows Server 2016, and IBM Z mainframes  – all from the same management plane. This means you can manage applications comprised of both Windows Continue reading

Docker is Headed to Gartner Catalyst 2017

The Docker team will be in sunny San Diego, CA, August 21-23 for Gartner Catalyst. Come by and visit us in Booth #508 to meet with our Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) experts, see a demo of Docker EE, and ask us any questions you may have before and after any of the Gartner sessions on Docker and containers. Better yet, schedule a meeting with us and we’ll not only answer all your questions, you will also get a special gift.

This year’s Catalyst event includes an entire topic dedicated to Docker and containers, which you can find by looking for the topic “Docker & Containers” in the schedule builder. If you are still trying to separate all the fact from fiction about Docker and want a specific recommendation, there is a great Tech Demo session by Gartner analyst Richard Watson we think you might like titled Seven Docker & Container Myths We Need To Bust. 

We hope you will join us at Gartner Catalyst to get the latest research on the next big trends for IT, but if you are not in San Diego, we hope to see you at one of these other upcoming events:

• VMworld, Continue reading

Announcing the New Release of Docker Enterprise Edition

We are excited to share the new release of Docker Enterprise Edition. By supporting IBM Z and Windows Server 2016, this release puts us further in the lead with the first Containers-as-a-Service (CaaS) solution in the market for the modernization of all applications without disruption to you and your IT environment.

Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) 17.06 embraces Windows, Linux and Linux-based mainframe applications, bringing the key benefits of CaaS to the enterprise application portfolio. Most enterprises manage a diverse set of applications that includes both traditional applications and microservices, built on Linux and Windows, and intended for x86 servers, mainframes, and public clouds. Docker EE unites all of these applications into single platform, complete with customizable and flexible access control, support for a broad range of applications and infrastructure, and a highly automated software supply chain. These capabilities allow organizations to easily layer Docker EE onto existing processes and workflows, aligning to existing organizational structures while delivering improved resource utilization and reduced maintenance time.

This release includes UCP 2.2 and DTR 2.3 and establishes Docker EE as a key IT platform for both new application development as well as application modernization across both on-premises and Continue reading

Quick Reference to Common AWS CLI Commands

This post provides an extremely basic “quick reference” to some commonly-used AWS CLI commands. It’s not intended to be a deep dive, nor is it intended to serve as any sort of comprehensive reference (the AWS CLI docs nicely fill that need).

This post does make a couple of important assumptions:

1. This post assumes you already have a basic understanding of the key AWS concepts and terminology, and therefore doesn’t provide any definitions or explanations of these concepts.

2. This post assumes the AWS CLI is configured to output in JSON. (If you’re not familiar with JSON, see this introductory article.) If you’ve configured your AWS CLI installation to output in plain text, then you’ll need to adjust these commands accordingly.

I’ll update this post over time to add more “commonly-used” commands, since each reader’s definition of “commonly used” may be different based on the AWS services consumed.

To list SSH keypairs in your default region:

aws ec2 describe-key-pairs

To use jq to grab the name of the first SSH keypair returned:

aws ec2 describe-key-pairs | jq -r '.KeyPairs[0].KeyName'

To store the name of the first SSH keypair returned in a variable for use in later commands:

KEY_NAME=$(aws  Continue reading

Using ODrive for Cloud Storage on Linux

A few months ago, I stumbled across a service called ODrive (“Oh” Drive) that allows you to combine multiple cloud storage services together. Since that time, I’ve been experimenting with ODrive, testing it to see how well it works, if at all, with my Fedora Linux environment. In spite of very limited documentation, I think I’ve finally come to a point where I can share what I’ve learned.

Before I proceed any further, I do feel it is necessary to provide a couple of disclaimers. First, while I’m using ODrive myself, I’m not using their paid (premium) service, even though it offers quite a bit more functionality. Why? Maybe this is a “chicken-and-egg” scenario, but I have a really hard time paying for a premium service where Linux client functionality is very limited and the documentation is extraordinarily sparse. (ODrive, if you’re reading this: put some effort into your Linux support and your docs, and you’ll probably get more paying customers.) Second, I’m providing this information “as is”; use it at your own risk.

OK, with those disclaimers out of the way, let’s get into the content. For Linux users, this page is about the extent of ODrive’s documentation. Continue reading

Manually Installing Azure CLI on Fedora 25

For various reasons that we don’t need to get into just yet, I’ve started exploring Microsoft Azure. Given that I’m a command-line interface (CLI) fan, and given that I use Fedora as my primary laptop operating system, this led me to installing the Azure CLI on my Fedora 25 system—and that, in turn, led to this blog post.

Some Background

First, some background. Microsoft has instructions for installing Azure CLI on Linux, but there are two problems with these instructions:

1. Official packages that can be installed via a package manager are only provided for Ubuntu/Debian. Clearly, this leaves Fedora/CentOS/RHEL users out in the cold.

2. Users of other Linux distributions are advised to use curl to download a script and pipe that script directly into Bash. (“Danger, Will Robinson!”) Clearly, this is not a security best practice, although I am glad that they didn’t recommend the use of sudo in the mix.

Now, if you dig into #2 a bit, you’ll find that the InstallAzureCli script you’re advised to download via curl really does nothing more than download a Python script named install.py. The install.py Python script really just uses pip and virtualenv to install the Azure Continue reading

Five Questions: Testing Ansible Playbooks & Roles

Next up in our #AskAnsible posts is Chris Meyers, our Senior Software Engineer.

Learn his take on five key questions we often get regarding testing Ansible Playbooks and roles.

1. Why should I test my Playbooks and roles?

Chris: Ansible Playbooks and roles should be treated like production code. Production code usually has unit tests, functional tests, and integration tests.

• Unit testing Ansible is equivalent to unit testing SQL queries, you just normally don’t do it. Ansible unit testing belongs at the Python module level.
• Function testing with Ansible would require a large amount of system state setup or mocking, and it just isn't realistic. 
• Integration testing is the most useful. It ensures that your intent, expressed in English, is translated correctly to Ansible’s declarative language.
  • Ex: you want to set up a LAMP or MEAN stack. A simple integration test would be to issue an http request that you know exercises the database. The integration test would ensure that your setup is correct from end to end.

Chris: You can start at any time! Tests can be added for new Playbooks or to existing Playbooks. Testing Continue reading