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5 reasons to attend DockerCon 2017

DockerCon 2017 is for the hackers, the makers and those who want to build tools of mass innovation. In April, 5,000 of the best and brightest will come together to share and learn from different experiences, diverse backgrounds, and common interests. We know that part of what makes DockerCon so special is what happens in the hallways, not just the main stage. Those spontaneous connections between attendees, and the endless networking and learning opportunities, are where the most meaningful interactions occur.

DockerCon 2017

If you haven’t been to a DockerCon yet, you may not know what you are missing. To try to explain why DockerCon 2017 is a must attend conference, we took the liberty of putting together the Top 5 reasons to join us April 17-20 in Austin, Texas.

  1. The.Best.Content. From beginner to deep dive, DockerCon brings together the brightest minds to talk about their passion. Those passions range from tracing containers, building containers from scratch, monitoring and storage, to creating effective images. The list goes on.

  2. Experts Everywhere. Want to meet the maintainers and tech leads of the Docker project? DockerCon! The community members that put together the coolest IoT hack to make walking in between sessions Continue reading

Introducing Docker Datacenter on 1.13 with Secrets, Security Scanning, Content Cache and more

It’s another exciting day with a new release of Docker Datacenter (DDC) on 1.13. This release includes loads of new features around app services, security, image distribution and usability.  

Check out the upcoming webinar on Feb 16th for a demo of all the latest features.

Let’s dig into some of the new features:

Integrated Secrets Management

This release of Docker Datacenter includes integrated support for secrets management from development all the way to production.

This feature allows users to store confidential data (e.g. passwords, certificates) securely on the cluster and inject these secrets to a service. Developers can reference the secrets needed by different services in the familiar Compose file format and handoff to IT for deployment in production. Check out the blog post on Docker secrets management for more details on implementation. DDC integrates secrets and adds several enterprise-grade enhancements, including lifecycle management and deployment of secrets in the UI, label-based granular access control for enhanced security, and auditing users’ access to secrets via syslog.

Image Security Scanning and Vulnerability Monitoring

Another element of delivering safer apps is around the ability to ensure trusted delivery of the code that makes up that app. In addition to Continue reading

Introducing Docker Secrets Management

Containers are changing how we view apps and infrastructure. Whether the code inside containers is big or small, container architecture introduces a change to how that code behaves with hardware – it fundamentally abstracts it from the infrastructure. Docker believes that there are three key components to container security and together they result in inherently safer apps.

A critical element of building safer apps is having a secure way of communicating with other apps and systems, something that often requires credentials, tokens, passwords and other types of confidential information—usually referred to as application secrets. We are excited to introduce Docker Secrets, a container native solution that strengthens the Trusted Delivery component of container security by integrating secret distribution directly into the container platform.

With containers, applications are now dynamic and portable across multiple environments. This  made existing secrets distribution solutions inadequate because they were largely designed for static environments. Unfortunately, this led to an increase in mismanagement of application secrets, making it common to find insecure, home-grown solutions, such as embedding secrets into version control systems like GitHub, or other equally bad—bolted on point solutions as an afterthought.

Introducing Docker Secrets Management

We fundamentally believe that apps are safer if Continue reading

Installing Sublime Text 3 on Fedora 25

Sublime Text is my current text editor of choice. I won’t go into why I chose it over other tools; instead, I encourage you to have a look for yourself. Installing Sublime Text 3 (ST3) on Fedora 25, though, isn’t as simple as running a dnf install. Fortunately, it’s not a difficult process, but it is a process I wanted to document here for the sake of others.

Here’s the process I followed:

  1. Download the latest tarball of ST3. As of this writing, it was build 3126, so this cURL command accomplishes what you need:

     curl -LO https://download.sublimetext.com/sublime_text_3_build_3126_x64.tar.bz2

    As build numbers change, though, you’ll want to verify the correct URL for the latest build. (A lot of sites I saw provide hard-coded scripts that help perform this process for you, but don’t account for changes in the download URL.)

  2. Extract the contents of the tarball with tar xvjf sublime_text_3_build_3126_x64.tar.bz2. This will create a directory called “sublime_text_3” with the contents of the tarball.

  3. Install the desktop launcher for ST3 by copying over the .desktop file in the tarball:

     sudo cp -rf sublime_text_3/sublime_text.desktop /usr/share/applications/sublime_text.desktop

  4. Edit the desktop launcher to specify the full path Continue reading

Announcing the DockerCon speakers and sessions

Today we’re excited to share the launch the DockerCon 2017 agenda. With 100+ DockerCon speakers, 60+ breakout sessions, 11 workshops, and hands on labs, we’re confident that you’ll find the right content for your role (Developer, IT Ops, Enterprise) or your level of Docker expertise (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced).

 

View the announced schedule and speakers lineup  

 

Announced sessions include:

Use Case

  • 0 to 60 with Docker in 5 Months: How a Traditional Fortune 40 Company Turns on a Dime by Tim Tyler (MetLife)
  • Activision’s Skypilot: Delivering Amazing Game Experiences through Containerized Pipelines by Tom Shaw (Activision)
  • Cool Genes: The Search for a Cure Using Genomics, Big Data, and Docker by James Lowey (TGEN)
  • The Tale of Two Deployments: Greenfield and Monolith Docker at Cornell by Shawn Bower and Brett Haranin (Cornell University)
  • Taking Docker From Local to Production at Intuit by JanJaap Lahpor (Intuit)

The Use Case track at @dockercon looks great w/ @tomwillfixit @JanJaapLahpor @drizzt51 #dockercon
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DockerCon Speakers

Using Docker

  • Docker for Devs by John Zaccone (Ippon Technologies)
  • Docker for Ops by Scott Couton (Puppet)
  • Docker for Java Developers by Arun Gupta (Couchbase) and Fabiane Nardon (TailTarget)
  • Docker for .NET Developers by Michele Bustamante (Solliance)
  • Creating Effective Continue reading

The Linux Migration: Virtualization Provider

As part of my migration to Linux as my primary laptop OS, I needed to revisit my choice of virtualization provider. Long-time readers probably know that I was an early adopter of VMware Fusion, starting way back in 2006 with the very first “friends and family” release (before it was even publicly available). Obviously I can’t use Fusion on Linux, but do I use VMware Workstation for Linux? VirtualBox? Or something else? That’s what I set out to determine, and in this post I’ll share what I selected and the reasoning behind my selection.

So what were the options to consider? While there may be some other solutions, these are the three I primarily assessed:

  • VMware Workstation for Linux 12.5.2
  • VirtualBox 5.1.14
  • “Native” Linux KVM, supplemented by Libvirt and a GUI like GNOME Boxes (installed by default in Fedora 25)

Since I have been using Vagrant quite a bit over the last few years, whatever solution I selected needed to work reasonably well with Vagrant.

I’m pretty familiar with KVM and Libvirt, so I started there. Given that KVM and Libvirt are “native” to Linux, it felt like it would be a clean solution. While Continue reading

Adventures in GELF

If you are running apps in containers and are using Docker’s GELF logging driver (or are considering using it), the following musings might be relevant to your interests.

Some context

When you run applications in containers, the easiest logging method is to write on standard output. You can’t get simpler than that: just echo, print, write (or the equivalent in your programming language!) and the container engine will capture your application’s output.

Other approaches are still possible, of course; for instance:

In the last scenario, this service can be:

  • a proprietary logging mechanism operated by your cloud provider, e.g. AWS CloudWatch or Google Stackdriver;
  • provided by a third-party specialized in managing logs or events, e.g. Honeycomb, Loggly, Splunk, etc.;
  • something running in-house, that you deploy and maintain yourself.

If your application is very terse, or Continue reading

Installing VirtualBox 5.1 on Fedora 25

Last fall, I wrote a piece about why I had switched to VirtualBox (from VMware Fusion) for my Vagrant needs. As part of my switch to Fedora Linux as my primary laptop OS, I revisited my choice of virtualization provider. I’ll describe that re-assessment in a separate post; the “TL;DR” for this post is that I settled on VirtualBox. As it turns out, though, installing VirtualBox 5.1 on Fedora 25 isn’t as straightforward as one might expect.

After a number of attempts (using a test VM to iron out the “best” procedure), here’s the process I found to be the most straightforward:

  1. Run dnf check-update and dnf upgrade to pick up the latest packages. If a new kernel version is installed, reboot. (I know this sounds contrived, but I’ve run into issues where some kernel-related packages aren’t available for the kernel version you’re actually running.)

  2. Install the RPMFusion repos. You only really need the “free” repository, but you can install the “nonfree” as well if you like (it won’t affect this process). I won’t go through the process for how to do this; it’s really well-documented on the RPMFusion web site and is pretty straightforward.

  3. Next, use Continue reading

Spousetivities at DockerCon 2017

DockerCon 2017 is coming up in mid-April in Austin, TX, and Spousetivities will once again be offering activities for folks traveling to Austin with conference attendees. This is Spousetivities’ second time at DockerCon, and Crystal has a great lineup of activities planned.

Here’s a quick preview of the activities organized for DockerCon:

  • Trip to Magnolia Market (from HGTV’s “Fixer Upper”)
  • Tour of LBJ State Park
  • Visit to Fredricksburg
  • Sightseeing through the Hill Country around Austin
  • Lunch at the Salt Lick BBQ

Austin in the spring should be a great place to visit, and Crystal has some really enjoyable activities planned—it’s a great reason to bring your spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend, significant other, or family member with you to Austin when you come for DockerCon. Of course, the chance to win some great prizes is nice too…

Crystal’s blog post on the Spousetivities site has a few more details, and registration is open right now.

Technology Short Take #77

Welcome to Technology Short Take #77. I’ve got a new collection of links and articles from around the Web on various data center-focused technologies.

Networking

Q&A: 15 Questions AWS Users Ask About DDC For AWS

Docker is deployed across all major cloud service providers, including AWS. So when we announced Docker Datacenter for AWS (which makes it even easier to deploy DDC on AWS) and showed live demos of the solution at AWS re:Invent 2016 it was no surprise that we received a ton of interest about the solution. Docker Datacenter for AWS, as you can guess from its name, is now the easiest way to install and stand up the Docker Datacenter (DDC)  stack on an AWS EC2 cluster. If you are an AWS user and you are looking for an enterprise container management platform, then this blog will help answer questions you have about using DDC on AWS.

In last week’s webinar,  Harish Jayakumar,  Solutions Engineer at Docker, provided a solution overview and demo to showcase how the tool works, and some of the cool features within it. You can watch the recording of the webinar below:

We also hosted a live Q&A session at the end where we opened up the floor to the audience and did our best to get through as many questions as we could. Below, are fifteen of the questions that we received from the audience. We selected Continue reading

More DockerCon Speakers Announced

Today, we are announcing the next group of awesome DockerCon speakers and we can’t wait for the lessons, stories, tips, tricks and insights they will share.

  • Need tips on how to create effective images, even when you have to include a bunch of image processing libraries?
  • What about learning how other organizations are taking Docker into production and adopting DevOps?
  • Want to deep dive into the Docker internals from Docker’s technical staff?

Join us at the largest container conference in the world to hear these stories and many more DockerCon speakers from the community. 

Docker Security Deep Dive

Journey to Docker Production: Evolving Your Infrastructure and Processes

Creating Effective Docker Images

Plug-ins: Building, Shipping, Storing and Running

Docker for Ops

Docker Networking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modern Storage Platform for Containerized Environments

Do you really want to attend sessions from these DockerCon speakers, but are having a hard time convincing your manager on pulling the trigger to send you? Have you already explained that sessions, training and hands-on exercises are definitely worth the financial investment and time away from your desk?

Well, fear not! We’ve put together a few more resources and reasons to help Continue reading

The Linux Migration: Final Linux Distro Selection

In my Linux migration initial progress report, I provided an early assessment of the Linux distribution that I thought I would use moving forward. At that time, I had selected Ubuntu. Since that time, though, I’ve pivoted a bit and selected a different Linux distribution as the operating system (OS) for my primary laptop moving forward. In this post, I’d like to describe why I selected Fedora.

My original reasons for selecting Ubuntu 16.04 were as follows:

  • Hardware support
  • Performance
  • Leading but not bleeding edge
  • User interface

These are all valid reasons, but as I continued to compare Ubuntu against Fedora 25 I realized that some of these factors weren’t as critical as I’d originally thought:

  • Hardware support: I initially targeted Ubuntu because it runs really well on Apple hardware. Fedora, on the other hand, doesn’t run quite as well on Apple hardware. Since I’m coming from the OS X world, I initially placed some emphasis on support for Apple hardware. The reality is, though, that I need a Linux distribution that does a great job of supporting my new work laptop, not one of my leftover Mac laptops. My experience with Fedora 25 on the Dell E7370 Continue reading

Convince your manager to send you to DockerCon

Has it sunk in yet that DockerCon is in roughly 2 months? That’s right, this year we gather in April as a community and ecosystem in Austin, Texas for 3 days of deep learning and networking (with a side serving of Docker fun). DockerCon is the annual community and industry event for makers and operators of next generation distributed apps built with containers. If Docker is important to your daily workflow or your business, you and your team (reach out for group discounts) should attend this conference to stay up to date on the latest progress with the Docker platform and ecosystem.

Do you really want to go to DockerCon, but are having a hard time convincing your manager on pulling the trigger to send you? Have you already explained that sessions, training and hands-on exercises are definitely worth the financial investment and time away from your desk?

Well, fear not! We’ve put together a few more resources and reasons to help convince your manager that DockerCon 2017 on April 17-20, is an invaluable experience you need to attend.

Something for everyone

DockerCon is the best place to learn and share your experiences with the industry’s greatest minds and the guarantee Continue reading

Looking Ahead: My 2017 Projects

For the last few years, I’ve been sharing my list of projects for each year (here’s the list for 2012, the list for 2013, 2015’s list, and last year’s list—I didn’t do a list for 2014). Toward the end of each year, I also publish a “report card” assessing my performance against that year’s list (here’s the 2016 assessment). In this post, I’m going to share my list of planned projects for 2017.

Without further ado, here’s the list for 2017:

  1. Finish the network automation book. One way or another, the network automation book I’m writing with Jason Edelman and Matt Oswalt is getting finished in 2017. (It’s available now as an Early Access edition if you’d like to give it a look and provide some feedback.)

  2. Launch an open source book project. This is something I’ve been tossing around for a while now. Since my efforts at making code contributions to an open source project aren’t going so well (though I’m going to keep moving in that direction), I figured I’d contribute in a way I know I can do. This is going to be a “cookbook”-style book, and the goal I’m setting Continue reading

Review: Dell Latitude E7370

As part of my Linux migration (see my initial progress report), late this past week I started setting up my first non-Apple laptop since 2003. In this post, I’d like to share my thoughts on my new laptop, a Dell Latitude E7370.

First, let’s get the specs—the “speeds and feeds”—out of the way:

  • Intel Core m7 CPU
  • 16 GB of RAM
  • 512 GB NVMe SSD
  • 3200x1800 touchscreen
  • Intel HD graphics and Intel 802.11a/b/g/n/ac wireless

Based on the specs alone, it’s easy to see this laptop is no slouch. It’s certainly comparable to the latest-generation of MacBook Pro laptops, except for the touchscreen (which the Macs don’t offer/support).

Subjectively, I have to say I’m impressed with the E7370. I travel quite a bit, so size and weight are important. This laptop looks and feels more svelte than my previous laptop, a 13” MacBook Air. From a comparison perspective, I’d say it’s on par with my son’s 11” MacBook Air. The build quality is great, and the laptop feels solid and sturdy. The display is crisp, sharp, and bright, and battery life (so far, without any OS-level tuning) has been respectable. Unlike some previous ultrabooks I’ve seen, Dell’s done Continue reading

Docker Online Meetup recap: Introducing Docker 1.13

Last week, we released Docker 1.13 to introduce several new enhancements in addition to building on and improving Docker swarm mode introduced in Docker 1.12. Docker 1.13 has many new features and fixes that we are excited about, so we asked core team member and release captain, Victor Vieux to introduce Docker 1.13 in an online meetup.

The meetup took place on Wednesday, Jan 25 and over 1000 people RSVPed to hear Victor’s presentation live. Victor gave an overview and demo of many of the new features:

  • Restructuration of CLI commands
  • Experimental build
  • CLI backward compatibility
  • Swarm default encryption at rest
  • Compose to Swarm
  • Data management commands
  • Brand new “init system”
  • Various orchestration enhancements

In case you missed it, you can watch the recording and access Victor’s slides below.

 

Below is a short list of the questions asked to Victor at the end of the Online meetup:

Q: What will happened if we call docker stack deploy multiple times to the same file?

A: All the services that were modified in the compose file will be updated according to their respective update policy. It won’t recreate a new stack, update the current one. Same Continue reading

Docker Meetup Community reaches 150K members

We are thrilled to announce that the Docker meetup community has reached over 150,000 members! We’d like to take a moment to acknowledge all the amazing contributors and Docker enthusiasts who are working hard to organize frequent and interesting Docker-centric meetups. Thanks to you, there are 275 Docker meetup groups, in 75 countries, across 6 continents.

There were over 1000 Docker meetups held all over the world last year. Big shout out to Ben Griffin, organizer of Docker Melbourne, who organized 18 meetups in 2016,  Karthik Gaekwad, Lee Calcote, Vikram Sabnis and Everett Toews, organizers of Docker Austin who organized 16 meetups, Gerhard Schweinitz and Stephen J Wallace, organizers of Docker Sydney who organized 13, and Jesse White, Luisa Morales and Doug Masiero from Docker NYC who organized 12. 

We also wanted to thank and give a massive shout out to organizers Adrien Blind and Patrick Aljord have grown the Docker Paris Meetup group to nearly 4,000 members and have hosted 46 events since they launched the group almost 4 years ago!

 

Why IT Automation is Becoming a Business Necessity

ansible-automation-whiteboard-1.png

Automation transformed factories. It gave manufacturing the ability to perform work faster, more efficiently, at higher quality. Processes became predictable. Productivity thrived. Factories that failed to automate fell behind. Automation became a business imperative.

IT departments are the modern factories powering today’s digital businesses. And just as today’s factories can’t compete without automation, automation will soon become imperative for IT organizations. Here’s why:

  1. Application delivery is fuel for growth. Today every business is a software business, regardless of whether you actually sell software. Every business depends on critical systems to engage with customers and gather data. For companies competing in the knowledge economy, IT operations is oxygen. The demands businesses place on DevOps teams will only continue to increase. We’re not going back—only forward, faster.

  2. Automation simplifies processes. Automation never sleeps. Throwing people at the problem helps companies grow, but the law of diminishing returns limits your ability to scale. Adding people adds complexity and costs.

  3. IT professionals don’t want to repeat the same tasks over and over. Just as manual work in factories is tiring, endless, and thankless—repetitive work squanders the creative energy of your best and often most highly paid people.

  4. Automation speeds the work so your people Continue reading

CPU Management in Docker 1.13

Resource management for containers is a huge requirement for production users. Being able to run multiple containers on a single host and ensure that one container does not starve the others in terms of cpu, memory, io, or networking in an efficient way is why I like working with containers. However, cpu management for containers is still not as straightforward as what I would like. There are many different options when it comes to dealing with restricting the cpu usage for a container. With things like memory, its is very easy for people to think that , --memory 512m gives the container up to 512mb. With CPU, it’s hard for people to understand a container’s limit with the current options.

In Docker 1.13 we added a --cpus flag, which is the best tech for limiting cpu usage of a container with a sane UX that the majority of users can understand. Let’s take a look at a couple of the options in 1.12 to show why this is necessary.

There are various ways to set a cpu limit for a container. Cpu shares, cpuset, cfs quota and period are the three most common ways. We can just go Continue reading

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