Monday, June 20, 2016

Docker Brings Built-in Container Orchestration

Docker is adding built-in orchestration capabilities to it Docker Engine, thereby enabling developers and IT organization to form a self-organizing, self-healing pool of machines on which to run multi-container distributed applications – both traditional apps and microservices – at scale in production. Specifically, Docker 1.12 will offer an optional “Swarm mode” feature that users can select to “turn on” built-in orchestration, or they can also elect to use either their own custom tooling or third-party orchestrators that run on Docker Engine.

“Orchestration is at the same stage today as containerization was before Docker. You either need an army of experts to build it, or you lock yourself to a monolithic platform which will drastically reduce your choice of suppliers,” said Solomon Hykes, founder and CTO at Docker. “Three years ago we brought containerization into the mainstream by making it usable for non-experts, without lock-in. We think it’s time to do the same for orchestration. This is a necessary step for the industry to move forward, and as the leaders of the containerization market it’s our responsibility to lead this change.”

The upcoming Docker 1.12 release simplifies the process of creating groups of Docker Engines, also known as swarms, which are now backed by automated service discovery and a built-in distributed datastore. The company said that unlike other systems, the swarm itself has no single point of failure. The state of all services is replicated in real time across a group of managers so containers can be rescheduled after any node failure. Docker orchestration includes a unique in-memory caching layer that maintains state of the entire swarm, providing a non-blocking architecture which assures scheduling performance even during peak times. Additionally, the system has a built-in routing mesh technology that addresses the challenge of how to provide container-aware load balancing. The routing mesh ensures that requests are made to the right containers regardless of where they have been scheduled within the swarm.

For security, each Engine is automatically assigned a cryptographic identity which ensures that only validated Engines can be accepted into a swarm. Moreover, Docker Engine comes with mutually authenticated TLS, providing authentication, authorization and end-to-end encrypted communications among every node participating in the swarm, without the operator having to take any steps to enable it.

http://www.docker.com

Weaveworks Debuts Microservices Console

Weaveworks, a start-up that offers networking and monitoring software for containers and microservices, today announced the public beta of Weave Cloud, a microservices console allowing developers and operations to quickly connect, visualize and monitor containers and microservices, regardless of the orchestrator. The console can be used to connect and manage containers and microservices, bridging the gap between the orchestration platform and the application. The product integrates SaaS versions of the full Weave stack, including Weave Net and Weave Scope.

Weaveworks is also introducing Weave Net 1.6, part of Weave Cloud, which adds native Docker container network integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Specifically, Weave Net orchestrates Docker and AWS VPC so that containers become “first class citizens” on the VPC network, using IP addresses from the VPC and gaining direct access to all of the rich networking capabilities of VPC.

https://www.weave.works/

Datadog Sees Docker Deployments Increasing

Docker market share has grown 30% in one year with larger enterprise companies leading adoption, according to a recent survey by Datadog, which offers a monitoring service for dynamic cloud infrastructure.

Datadog’s Docker Adoption Research was based on a sample of 10,000 companies and tracks real usage, making it the largest and most accurate review of Docker adoption published to date. Datadog found that two-thirds of companies that try Docker adopt it within one month and quintuple their usage within nine months. These statistics demonstrate that containerization is solving real, immediate problems for companies at scale.


Datadog also introduced its Automated Service Discovery, a service that enables teams to seamlessly monitor Dockerized infrastructure without interruption as it expands, contracts, and shifts across hosts by continuously listening to Docker events. Whenever a container is created or started, the Datadog Agent identifies which service is running then starts collecting and reporting metrics. Whenever a container is stopped or destroyed, the Agent recognizes that as well.

“Datadog has been adopted by thousands of leading enterprise companies transitioning away from legacy IT,” said Olivier Pomel, Co-Founder and CEO of Datadog. “This gives us unique insight into where the industry is heading, what innovative technologies are being adopted, and allows us to better service these customers.”

http://www.datadog.com

Dell Launches New High Performance Computing Portfolio

Dell launched a new a family of high-performance computing (HPC) systems tuned for specific science, manufacturing and analytics workloads with fully tested and validated building block systems, backed by a single point of hardware support and additional service options across the solution lifecycle. Dell's new HPC Systems feature an Intel Scalable System Framework configuration with the latest Xeon processors, support for Intel Omni-Path Architecture (Intel OPA) fabric, and software in the Dell HPC Lustre Storage and Dell HPC NFS Storage solutions.

Dell has instituted a customer early access program for early development and testing in preparation for Dell’s next server offering in the HPC solutions portfolio, the Dell PowerEdge C6320p server, which will be available in the second half of 2016, with the Intel® Xeon Phi™ processor (formerly code-named Knights Landing).

http://www.dell.com

Aviatrix's Project Skyhook Aims to Manage Distributed Container Clusters

Aviatrix Systems,a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced Project Skyhook to securely connect container groups and enforce policies across distributed hybrid and public clouds.

The project builds on Aviatrix’s cloud native networking software which provides centralized network connectivity, management, and security of applications running on virtual machines.

Specifically, Project Skyhook aims to provide the missing connectivity and adaptive policy management for companies with distributed clusters of containers that are deployed either on-premises or in the public cloud. Aviatrix said its software is not a network overlay. Rather, Aviatrix sits directly in the data path, taking advantage of the richness of Docker’s native VXLAN overlay drivers and APIs, just as it harnesses the AWS, Azure and Google APIs to offer cloud native networking.

“There have been over 30 years of development and increasing sophistication around segmentation and security of on-premises networks for servers and virtual machines. The cloud, containers, and microservices need all this too,” said Steven Mih, Aviatrix CEO. “In tomorrow’s distributed environments, containers will be first class citizens, able to deploy across logical and geographic borders, wherever it makes sense. Thanks to Project Skyhook, Aviatrix will make sure they travel safely.”

http://www.aviatrix.com

Aviatrix Builds Cloud Native Networking for Scaling Virtual Private Clouds

Aviatrix, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, unveiled a "Cloud Native Networking" solution that combines a software-defined network controller and software gateways to enable businesses to scale out virtual private clouds (VPCs) with VLAN-like segmentation of cloud instances and policy-based security. The idea is to make it easier to provision and manage VPCs that span public, private and hybrid clouds. The Aviatrix software provisions, orchestrates and connects secure tunnels across regions, eliminating manual configuration and reducing administrative complexity of cloud-to-cloud, user-to-cloud and site-to-cloud connectivity.

The upcoming Aviatrix 2.0 software, which will be generally available in June, enables virtual cloud provisioning for AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.  Aviatrix could be used to link and manage resources in multiple clouds. The company said it has already established close partnerships with the big three cloud providers.

The solution consists of the Aviatrix web-portal-based controller, and one or more Aviatrix gateways deployed on the cloud or on-premises. The controller is the central point of configuration, orchestration, and monitoring for all functions and cloud services, while the gateway manages each VPC and performs encryption/decryption, packet forwarding, policy enforcements and logging capabilities. VLAN-like segmentation helps maximize application security by ensuring that each application is fully isolated and protected

Platform9 Managed Kubernetes Supports Docker

Plarform9 announced support for Docker containers with its enterprises-ready, container management and orchestration platform, which is based on Kubernetes.

Platform9 said Kubernetes is the leader among a new class of container management frameworks because it provides features such as service discovery, load balancing and application lifecycle management.

Platform9 adds features such as single sign on (SSO), role-based access control (RBAC) and multi-tenancy for policy and governance, as well as persistent storage, isolated networking, and image management. Further, uptime and stability of the deployment are critical.

"For forward-looking organizations that are taking a containerized approach to applications for greater agility and efficiency, Kubernetes provides a powerful orchestration framework for DevOps workflows," said Madhura Maskasky, co-founder and vice president of product at Platform9. "Platform9 Managed Kubernetes simplifies and supercharges orchestration with operational capabilities and service-level guarantees that make it quick, easy and affordable for enterprises to deploy and run containers at scale in production."

The new product is in beta release.

http://www.platform9.com

Platform9 Enables OpenStack Private Clouds

Platform9, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, announced general availability of its a SaaS solution that transforms an organization's existing servers into an AWS-like agile, self-service private cloud.  A version of Platform9 Managed OpenStack for VMware vSphere environments is now available.  A version for KVM environments has been in production since January 2015. Support for Docker is in development; a beta will be announced later this year.

The company said its Platform9 Managed OpenStack’s unique SaaS delivery model not only makes it easy for IT to quickly deploy an OpenStack private cloud but also provides ongoing operational support by including monitoring, troubleshooting and updates for OpenStack.

With today’s announcement, Platform9 now fully supports VMware vSphere environments: a new VMware specific Virtual Appliance is now available to integrate the OpenStack controller services with vSphere resources. The Virtual Appliance works using vSphere APIs and is 100% interoperable with VMware vSphere, so operations can be performed either via the OpenStack control plane or via vSphere directly. The result is that for the first time, VMware customers have an easy to manage, fully interoperable solution to orchestrate their resources as an OpenStack-based private cloud.

“Platform9’s mission is to make private clouds easy to deploy and manage for the enterprise. By fully supporting VMware vSphere, we are enabling every VMware customer to instantly derive greater value and infrastructure agility from existing virtualized infrastructure,” said Sirish Raghuram, co-founder and CEO of Platform9. “Customers no longer need to choose between the world’s leading private cloud platform (OpenStack) and the world’s leading virtualization platform (VMware vSphere): Platform9 Managed OpenStack is 100% interoperable with VMware vSphere, allowing customers to integrate OpenStack and vSphere seamlessly. Developers can have self-service provisioning using OpenStack while at the same time, IT Operations manages the underlying infrastructure using vSphere.”

Platform9 also announced $10 million in Series B funding, bringing the funding total to $14.5 million. Menlo Ventures led the round, and previous investor Redpoint Ventures also participated. The company plans to use the money to accelerate its product roadmap for its growing customer base.

http://www.platform9.com


  • Platform9 was founded by early VMware engineers Sirish Raghuram (CEO), Madhura Maskasky (VP Product), Roopak Parikh (VP Engineering) and Bich Le (Chief Architect)/