Docker Enterprise 3.0: Enhanced App Development And Kubernetes Capabilities, Along With Docker Enterprise-as-a-Service

The pioneering container startup has teamed with Capgemini as the launch partner for delivering a hosted, fully managed version of its enterprise container management platform.

Docker showcased a broad set of new application development and Kubernetes management capabilities Tuesday at its DockerCon conference, as well as an as-a-service version of its latest container management platform, Docker Enterprise 3.0, delivered in partnership with Capgemini.

The systems integration giant will be the first Docker channel partner to offer a fully managed version of Docker Enterprise, with on-demand provisioning and consumption-based billing for handling all installation, configuration, security, backup and patching.

Docker Enterprise 3.0, soon to be released in beta, also introduces Docker Kubernetes Service, DKS, which provides a consistent Kubernetes stack from the developer's laptop to the public cloud.

[Related: Docker Hires VMware Veteran To Fill CTO Void Left By Founder's Exit]

Other new features in 3.0 include an enterprise version of the Docker Desktop platform popular with developers kicking off Docker projects; and Docker Applications, a service for shuttling applications through the development pipeline.

Accompanying the comprehensive upgrades, Docker has added a solution track to its Modernize Traditional Applications (MTA) program for partners delivering new, cloud-native applications on its platform.

In his keynote, Docker CEO Steve Singh told DockerCon attendees the pioneering startup is focused on simplifying the container transformation experience from on-premises environments to the cloud and increasingly in edge deployments.

"If the answer is containers and container platforms, it's logical to ask, what's the question," Singh said.

Hundreds of CIOs have made clear, he said, the question is how to achieve digital transformation.

"They want to know how to leverage the cloud," Singh said. "More and more, differentiation is driven entirely by software."

That's why Docker's development strategy follows the same principles that govern the internet: interoperability and choice, Singh said.

Docker Enterprise-as-a-Service delivers a fully managed Docker environment that's agnostic to cloud providers.

"To bring this quickly to market and scale, we're working with our partner ecosystem," Scott Johnston, Docker's general manager for enterprise solutions, said in Tuesday's keynote.

Customers are looking to scale production deployments after completing their proofs-of-concept. But in many labor markets, Kubernetes and Docker experts are in short supply, and consuming Docker Enterprise as a packaged product can be a challenge.

That reality "led to an agile partnership" with Capgemini—the first of what will be several services providers that offer hosted versions of the platform, Johnston told CRN before the event.

"We don’t have a preference of any one cloud, nor do they," Johnston said. Capgemini "wanted to address customers' concerns and requirements without being tied to one cloud or another. We offer that portability."

The new Kubernetes service, DKS, delivers consistency across the Kubernetes stack by leveraging a common set of popular tools—Docker Compose for defining multi-container applications, YAML configuration files, and Helm Charts that define Kubernetes resources.

DKS automates installation, configuration, management and scaling of applications orchestrated on Kubernetes clusters from local development environments to hybrid and multi-cloud production environments.

"This provides consistency across the entire application pipeline while simplifying managing and securing Kubernetes," Johnston told CRN.

Docker Applications, also introduced in 3.0, makes it easier to share multi-container applications across the application development pipeline.

The feature "creates a single, immutable container of containers" based on the CNAB open standard for packaging distributed applications that Docker has been developing mainly in conjunction with Microsoft, Johnston said in the keynote.

Docker Desktop Enterprise delivers "everything a developer needs to get productive on Docker quickly," Johnston told CRN.

The new feature automates the creation of Docker Compose files and passing application images to the Docker Hub registry, then deploying them to a Kubernetes environment through a continuous integration pipeline.