5 ms·

> Each Docker EE release is supported and maintained for one year and receives security and critical bugfixes during that period. I thought one of those most i

> Each Docker EE release is supported and maintained for one year and receives security and critical bugfixes during that period. I thought one of those most important enterprisy things would usually be a long support timeframe. One year isn't exactly very LTS.

AckSyn 10y ago
That was my thought as well. Docker not supporting a version for longer than a year is a no-go. This is not enterprise ready. It's barely dev ready because my devs need a stable environment to work in, not something that's going to puke every few weeks.
- todd3834 10y ago
  Just because something isn't guaranteed not to puke every few weeks doesn't mean that it will. I've been using Docker for a while now and it has been very rare that I run into issues because of an update.
  - jsudhams 10y ago
    In large enterprise it will take 6 months to get a version certified to work with tooling so need 3 year at the minimum to put any effort on it.
    - IMTDb 10y ago
      Docker initial release was just 4 years ago, your asking for a support timeframe that's around the same length as the age of the project itself. Docker still is a new product, evolving very fast (this announcement is just one more proof of that). Is it production ready ? Yes If you want to move fast and benefit from new tech and are ready to upgrade regularly. No if you are not able to perform those upgrades and need insurance that the project will contribute significant ressources to fixing issues on 3 years old versions. And currently I totally understand that the Docker team sets slider more towards "new dev" than towards "support". That will probably change in the future.
      - AckSyn 10y ago
        > Docker still is a new product, evolving very fast And that's a large part of the problem. We, as an Enterprise, don't want something with rapid evolving infrastructure, features. We need stability, critical and security patches. Emphasis on stability. 3 years is a minimum we would consider for that and not a 1 year only support range.
        djb_hackernews 10y ago
        You just listed a bunch of reasons why your Enterprise should not be using Docker. EDIT: I did not realize it was per node pricing. I take back mostly everything I said below. I hope that ultimately when Docker does provide 3 years of support, you'll be willing to pay up. Look at the pricing, even the biggest Enterprise plan is $2000/yr. This is aimed at small consultancies, startups and small businesses, etc that are tired of sending their developers into the docker github issues to log bugs and argue features. When Docker adds a plan that satisfies your Enterprise, you'll be paying typical Enterprise prices that will be at least an order of magnitude larger than the current biggest plan. Hopefully you are able to put your money where your mouth is.
        amouat 10y ago
        Note that the pricing is per node.
        shykes 10y ago
        For reference here are a few case studies of enterprises using Docker EE in production: - https://www.docker.com/customers/docker-datacenter-delivers-security-and-scale-adp https://www.docker.com/customers/docker-datacenter-delivers-... - https://www.docker.com/customers/ge-uses-docker-enable-self-service-their-developers https://www.docker.com/customers/ge-uses-docker-enable-self-... - https://www.docker.com/customers/ing-delivers-value-customers-faster https://www.docker.com/customers/ing-delivers-value-customer... There are many more here: https://www.docker.com/customers https://www.docker.com/customers Also, as others have noted: the price point is per-node. Docker EE is most definitely for enterprises.
    - Turbots 10y ago
      Guess you're not working in a very agile company. Enjoy your bankruptcy soon.
  - imglorp 10y ago
    There are 2250 open issues on the github. We're tracking a good handful or two as nuisances to our process but there are no showstoppers for us in dev. We're not in production yet. https://github.com/docker/docker/issues https://github.com/docker/docker/issues
  - majewsky 10y ago
    We had a pretty good time with CoreOS ^W Container Linux by CoreOS in that regard. They seem to be really good at providing automatic OS updates and shipping known-to-be-working combinations of kernel and Docker.
  - piva00 10y ago
    I've been working with Docker in production for about 2 years now and I have the opposite experience, not in the sense that I run in issues very very frequently between updates but it's happened often enough for us to not push updates at all for Docker until we are very confident it won't break. It's happened at least 5 times in the past 2 years, that's VERY frequent from an enterprise viewpoint.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
shykes 10y ago
It's true that 1 year support is not as long as many enterprise infrastructure products. We plan to expand it over time. But we've found that it's a good fit for our current offering, and the value enterprises are getting from it. - Keep in mind we are releasing Docker EE quarterly, and supporting every release for a year. This is attractive for enterprises who are adopting Docker in part to make their software practice more agile. They don't want to be forced to upgrade every 3 months. But they appreciate that they can. This works for Docker because it sits relatively higher on the stack. If we were providing a storage appliance, or a traditional host operating system, this wouldn't make sense - For a company of our size and maturity (300 people, 4 year-old free product, 18 months-old paid product), earning the trust of large conservative enterprises can be hard. We do it by being honest about our abilities, conservative in what we promise, and going above and beyond to deliver on what we promised. In this case, we simply weren't confident that we could promise more than 4 simultaneous EE releases (1 year support x 4 releases per year). That might cost us sales opportunities now with more conservative buyers, but those buyers would probably have been unhappy with us anyway. We can get them later - when our product is more mature and our release and support infrastructure is more robust. EDIT: I see other commentors confidently stating what is and isn't enterprise-ready. Remember that enterprises are, by definition, very large. There are many departments with different goals and different priorities. For some of them, Docker EE with quarterly releases and 1-year support is a good fit. For other, it's not. And that's OK.
- kupiakos 10y ago
  At some point it might make sense to do something like Ubuntu: LTS releases (5 year support) every two years, and short term support often.
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  As a relatable data point, Pivotal Cloud Foundry does not have LTS releases yet. We also release quarterly and make very frequent updates, usually from upstream CVEs, through Pivotal Network. Enterprises want LTSes because legacy platforms are a nightmare to install, operate and upgrade. It becomes less important as the platform itself becomes less bestial. Ultimately, enterprises want outcomes. Any given checklist item from the buying department usually represents scar tissue that may or may not still be relevant. New platforms -- Cloud Foundry, OpenShift v3, Docker EE, whichever of the thousand blooming Kubernetes offerings will succeed -- are in a position to renegotiate from first principles. You might want to look into BOSH. It's a large part of the operability secret sauce for Cloud Foundry. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we're ostensibly competitors due to the increasing overlap between Docker EE and Cloud Foundry.
nikcub 10y ago
I'd like to +1 this - one year is a tough sell in a world where a 5-10 years is norm Backwards compat and LTS already comes up a lot with enterprise support, requiring an annual upgrade project will only complicate it
- shykes 10y ago
  Sorry about that. We will expand the support window over time.
  - thrill 10y ago
    FWIW, I think an 18 month support promise would be a reasonable first endeavor. The enterprise I worked at for several years did things on an annual cycle (as their customer interest was quite annual also). Project planning took this into account, so a year was a reasonable planning point - but things do slip, and having an extra few months with known support would be a relief factor.
    - shykes 10y ago
      That's great feedback, thank you.
- evilduck 10y ago
  On the other hand, expecting a company to promise a 5 year support window when they're less than 5 years old seems unrealistic.

AckSyn 10y ago

That was my thought as well. Docker not supporting a version for longer than a year is a no-go. This is not enterprise ready. It's barely dev ready because my devs need a stable environment to work in, not something that's going to puke every few weeks.

todd3834 10y ago
Just because something isn't guaranteed not to puke every few weeks doesn't mean that it will. I've been using Docker for a while now and it has been very rare that I run into issues because of an update.
- jsudhams 10y ago
  In large enterprise it will take 6 months to get a version certified to work with tooling so need 3 year at the minimum to put any effort on it.
  - IMTDb 10y ago
    Docker initial release was just 4 years ago, your asking for a support timeframe that's around the same length as the age of the project itself. Docker still is a new product, evolving very fast (this announcement is just one more proof of that). Is it production ready ? Yes If you want to move fast and benefit from new tech and are ready to upgrade regularly. No if you are not able to perform those upgrades and need insurance that the project will contribute significant ressources to fixing issues on 3 years old versions. And currently I totally understand that the Docker team sets slider more towards "new dev" than towards "support". That will probably change in the future.
    - AckSyn 10y ago
      > Docker still is a new product, evolving very fast And that's a large part of the problem. We, as an Enterprise, don't want something with rapid evolving infrastructure, features. We need stability, critical and security patches. Emphasis on stability. 3 years is a minimum we would consider for that and not a 1 year only support range.
      - djb_hackernews 10y ago
        You just listed a bunch of reasons why your Enterprise should not be using Docker. EDIT: I did not realize it was per node pricing. I take back mostly everything I said below. I hope that ultimately when Docker does provide 3 years of support, you'll be willing to pay up. Look at the pricing, even the biggest Enterprise plan is $2000/yr. This is aimed at small consultancies, startups and small businesses, etc that are tired of sending their developers into the docker github issues to log bugs and argue features. When Docker adds a plan that satisfies your Enterprise, you'll be paying typical Enterprise prices that will be at least an order of magnitude larger than the current biggest plan. Hopefully you are able to put your money where your mouth is.
        amouat 10y ago
        Note that the pricing is per node.
        shykes 10y ago
        For reference here are a few case studies of enterprises using Docker EE in production: - https://www.docker.com/customers/docker-datacenter-delivers-security-and-scale-adp https://www.docker.com/customers/docker-datacenter-delivers-... - https://www.docker.com/customers/ge-uses-docker-enable-self-service-their-developers https://www.docker.com/customers/ge-uses-docker-enable-self-... - https://www.docker.com/customers/ing-delivers-value-customers-faster https://www.docker.com/customers/ing-delivers-value-customer... There are many more here: https://www.docker.com/customers https://www.docker.com/customers Also, as others have noted: the price point is per-node. Docker EE is most definitely for enterprises.
  - Turbots 10y ago
    Guess you're not working in a very agile company. Enjoy your bankruptcy soon.
- imglorp 10y ago
  There are 2250 open issues on the github. We're tracking a good handful or two as nuisances to our process but there are no showstoppers for us in dev. We're not in production yet. https://github.com/docker/docker/issues https://github.com/docker/docker/issues
- majewsky 10y ago
  We had a pretty good time with CoreOS ^W Container Linux by CoreOS in that regard. They seem to be really good at providing automatic OS updates and shipping known-to-be-working combinations of kernel and Docker.
- piva00 10y ago
  I've been working with Docker in production for about 2 years now and I have the opposite experience, not in the sense that I run in issues very very frequently between updates but it's happened often enough for us to not push updates at all for Docker until we are very confident it won't break. It's happened at least 5 times in the past 2 years, that's VERY frequent from an enterprise viewpoint.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

shykes 10y ago

It's true that 1 year support is not as long as many enterprise infrastructure products. We plan to expand it over time. But we've found that it's a good fit for our current offering, and the value enterprises are getting from it. - Keep in mind we are releasing Docker EE quarterly, and supporting every release for a year. This is attractive for enterprises who are adopting Docker in part to make their software practice more agile. They don't want to be forced to upgrade every 3 months. But they appreciate that they can. This works for Docker because it sits relatively higher on the stack. If we were providing a storage appliance, or a traditional host operating system, this wouldn't make sense - For a company of our size and maturity (300 people, 4 year-old free product, 18 months-old paid product), earning the trust of large conservative enterprises can be hard. We do it by being honest about our abilities, conservative in what we promise, and going above and beyond to deliver on what we promised. In this case, we simply weren't confident that we could promise more than 4 simultaneous EE releases (1 year support x 4 releases per year). That might cost us sales opportunities now with more conservative buyers, but those buyers would probably have been unhappy with us anyway. We can get them later - when our product is more mature and our release and support infrastructure is more robust. EDIT: I see other commentors confidently stating what is and isn't enterprise-ready. Remember that enterprises are, by definition, very large. There are many departments with different goals and different priorities. For some of them, Docker EE with quarterly releases and 1-year support is a good fit. For other, it's not. And that's OK.

kupiakos 10y ago
At some point it might make sense to do something like Ubuntu: LTS releases (5 year support) every two years, and short term support often.
jacques_chester 10y ago
As a relatable data point, Pivotal Cloud Foundry does not have LTS releases yet. We also release quarterly and make very frequent updates, usually from upstream CVEs, through Pivotal Network. Enterprises want LTSes because legacy platforms are a nightmare to install, operate and upgrade. It becomes less important as the platform itself becomes less bestial. Ultimately, enterprises want outcomes. Any given checklist item from the buying department usually represents scar tissue that may or may not still be relevant. New platforms -- Cloud Foundry, OpenShift v3, Docker EE, whichever of the thousand blooming Kubernetes offerings will succeed -- are in a position to renegotiate from first principles. You might want to look into BOSH. It's a large part of the operability secret sauce for Cloud Foundry. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we're ostensibly competitors due to the increasing overlap between Docker EE and Cloud Foundry.

nikcub 10y ago

I'd like to +1 this - one year is a tough sell in a world where a 5-10 years is norm Backwards compat and LTS already comes up a lot with enterprise support, requiring an annual upgrade project will only complicate it

shykes 10y ago
Sorry about that. We will expand the support window over time.
- thrill 10y ago
  FWIW, I think an 18 month support promise would be a reasonable first endeavor. The enterprise I worked at for several years did things on an annual cycle (as their customer interest was quite annual also). Project planning took this into account, so a year was a reasonable planning point - but things do slip, and having an extra few months with known support would be a relief factor.
  - shykes 10y ago
    That's great feedback, thank you.
evilduck 10y ago
On the other hand, expecting a company to promise a 5 year support window when they're less than 5 years old seems unrealistic.