8 ms·

Docker and VMWare

90 points by julien421 12y ago

walterbell 12y ago
> The companies are working together to ensure that the Docker Engine runs as a first-class citizen on developer workstations using VMware Fusion, data center servers with VMware vSphere, and vCloud Air, VMware’s public cloud. How about VMware Workstation?
- chipx86 12y ago
  Workstation and Fusion are, under the UI, practically the same application. If it works in Fusion, it should work fine in Workstation.
djb_hackernews 12y ago
46 days ago I made this comment: "crickets from VMWare/EMC. Docker/containers will eat their lunch if they don't jump in and get involved." after an announced partnership between the major tech players and Docker. I take it back and the more the merrier.
- limaoscarjuliet 12y ago
  Just a reminder, adding VMWare-like virtualization layer (i.e. full virtualization) to the mix will cost you more than 40% of your CPU: http://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0929052195DD819C85257D2300681E7B/$File/rc25482.pdf http://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0... In my view one of the key reasons to do it is to use AWS or the like. Until they have full Docker support on bare metal that is. P.S. There are other reasons, e.g. Docker makes it difficult to create a separate publicly visible network interface. But these I feel will go away soon as well.
  - skybrian 12y ago
    Looks like VMWare is working on that too: http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2014/08/containers-vms-kubernetes-and-vmware.html http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2014/08/containers-v...
  - acdha 12y ago
    > Just a reminder, adding VMWare-like virtualization layer (i.e. full virtualization) to the mix will cost you more than 40% of your CPU … on a couple of microbenchmarks when you define “CPU” to mean “I/O”. Even if you ignore the question of whether KVM performance is the same as VMware's (hint: no), most of the the charts in that paper contradict such a broad statement.
  - jasongill 12y ago
    This article only mentions VMware twice in the body, both in passing. The majority of the article is a comparison of KVM and Docker. Many of the points in the article don't apply to VMware at all, or refer to things that are KVM specific limitations which VMware has already overcome. In fact, the article says "KVM has much higher overhead, higher than 40% in all measured cases." - saying nothing of "VMware-like virtualization" or VMware ESXi at all. While it's true that containerized "virtualization" traditionally has less overhead than a hypervisor like ESXi, the difference is increasingly small and in most environments negligible, especially considering the added features and flexibility of ESXi vs containers. From my experience and tests, the performance difference between an app in a container running on bare metal vs the same app running in VMware has been insignificant, so to say that there is a 40% performance penalty is probably disingenuous.
- rsync 12y ago
  Neither jail nor Solaris Zones ate vmwares lunch ...
  - contingencies 12y ago
    VirtualBox is a bigger threat
    - nl 12y ago
      Because Oracle is easier to work with than VMWare? Wait, that doesn't seem right...
      - contingencies 12y ago
        No, because their feature set is similar for many purposes, their stuff works well cross-platform and is free. The way I see it, VMWare was a one trick pony and the horse has bolted, and while expanding their offering in to virtual networking topology provision and serious hardware infrastructure provision has been tried, it inevitably fails in subtle ways. Simply put: people need transparency in dynamic, modern infrastructure and they don't get it from 'put me in the middle' commercial vendors. Nor does the complexity cost of the mystical one size fits all virtualization solution magically dissipate when marketers invoke the ancient spirits of enterprise requirements.
        nl 12y ago
        I'm not aware of many people using VirtualBox for server virtualization. That's where VMWare makes (almost all) of their money. VirtualBox isn't better in anyway then VMWare - except it is cheaper. That isn't really enough on its own (and there are plenty of more viable competitor of zero cost is all that matters: Xen, KVM, etc etc). OTOH, Docker is cheaper, faster, much less resource intensive, and less secure. That's disruptive, and much more difficult for VMWare to fight than another conventional virtualization competitor.
        12y ago
nilsimsa 12y ago
How does docker actually make money?
- timdorr 12y ago
  From their about page: https://www.docker.com/company/aboutus/ https://www.docker.com/company/aboutus/ Docker, Inc. offers Docker-related products and services and is creating a network of certified professional support, training, and services providers. We are committed to keeping Docker open source under the Apache 2.0 license. They used to be dotCloud, and presumably have some legacy clients still paying them money to keep the lights on.
  - mattzito 12y ago
    They sold their dotCloud business so they could focus on core Docker.
- corford 12y ago
  They raised $15 million from Greylock and Benchmark which I guess will help keep the wolves at bay until they a). figure out how to monetize or b). get bought by Oracle/VMWare or similar
Thaxll 12y ago
What's the point of using Docker within a VM...?
- pierre_massat 12y ago
  "Providing machines for Kubernetes in not only necessary as a pool of raw cycles and bytes but also can provide a critical extra layer of security". [0] Maybe it's true for now, but containers may be enough security in the future. [0] http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2014/08/containers-vms-kubernetes-and-vmware.html http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2014/08/containers-vm...
- daveoflynn 12y ago
  It's vital if you use a Mac/Win as a dev machine.
- joeblau 12y ago
  @daveoflynn is correct the LXC founding that docker is built on only currently works in Linux.
  - limaoscarjuliet 12y ago
    BTW, they are still Linux only, but do not use LXC anymore. LXC was replaced with libcontainer. http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/docker_0_9 http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/docker_0_9
- lobster_johnson 12y ago
  The reasons are actually not any different than when running on a dedicated machine; running containers is a good idea, regardless of whether it's a VM. Containerization is a smaller, granular unit of isolation than a VM, and it's complementary to virtualization, not a replacement/competitor.
nubela 12y ago
Here's my __obvious__ prediction: VMWare will buy Docker for billions, simply because docker will make VM obsolete.
- mrbill 12y ago
  Containers don't fit everyone's requirements; the need for "full machine" virtualization won't go away.
  - WestCoastJustin 12y ago
    I think you are right and wrong. Many people are using "full machine" virtualization today, when what they wanted was just application isolation and resource control, but the only easy way to do this, was to use virtualization. As recipes & tutorials come out on how to migrate existing applications to containers from virtualization, I suspect people will review if they really need "full machine" virtualization, or just use a container. ps. Just to be clear, I think there is still a need for virtualization.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      > what they wanted was just application isolation Isolation of one trusted application from another trusted application for ease of configuration? Or did you have other forms of isolation in mind?
- mattzito 12y ago
  First: docker is not going to make VMs obsolete. Docker has their use cases: lightweight! PaaS! incremental push! 12-factor apps! VMs have their use cases: Strong isolation! online migration! completely portable! consolidation for traditional applications! So no, Docker will probably live alongside, next to, holding hands with, traditional VM environments, in much the same way that J2EE apps coexist with Rails. But, the other reason that VMware won't want to buy Docker is that over the long run, these technologies become increasingly commoditized. VMware's hypervisor was innovative when it first launched, and these days, you can argue that you can get much the same functionality from KVM or Hyper-V - or even in this case, LXC and Docker for a different set of use cases. Instead, VMware needs to make money on their management tools. Ideally, those management tools will be managing VMware's hypervisor, but they can't be afford to be so choosy. So, instead, they want a "first among equals" relationship with various open source technologies so they can be in the mix in every environment, even those where they haven't sold their hypervisor. That's why they won't buy Docker - they don't want to sell the platform, they want to manage everyone's platform. (note: everything I said is my own opinion, not that of my employer. We are coop-etitors with VMware in some of our business, and hence, I've got a conflict of interest I feel obligated to disclose).
astockwell 12y ago
More of an observation than anything, but Docker certainly has the corporate-ese marketing speak down pat. Much more so than most other "hot" OSS/platforms. Why such a different culture? Or are they just trying to climb into VMWare's bed?
- superuser2 12y ago
  Docker is more useful to people with more services to containerize, and that often means enterprise. To your average start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps, it's not nearly as much of a value-add.
  - markbnj 12y ago
    Don't really agree with this. Being able to configure a new instance quickly and easily is useful no matter how large you are. For that matter, so is being able to spin up an isolated environment on a dev box as fast as you can start an editor.
    - frostmatthew 12y ago
      > Being able to configure a new instance quickly and easily is useful no matter how large you are. The comment you're replying to didn't say it wasn't useful for the "average start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps" - it said it's less useful ("not nearly as much of a value-add") compared to a large enterprise. When your entire environment runs on half a dozen VMs you have much less to gain by faster/easier provisioning then when you're running tens of thousands.
  - drcode 12y ago
    > your average start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps DOESN'T REALIZE THE VALUE-ADD YET. FTFY.
- simonpantzare 12y ago
  I think Ben Golub plays a part in that. As superuser2 says, enterprises make up a large chunk of Docker's market. Github is also tapping into this segment—most of their recent hires are extensions to their enterprise support, sales, and account management teams.
otterley 12y ago
VMWare "management"? Is that even possible from the command line these days?
- superuser2 12y ago
  No. But a big slow Windows-only GUI seems to be exactly what enterprise customers demand.
- networkguy 12y ago
  VMware has a strong GUI focus for the majority of Sysadmins and Virtual Admins that use it. That said; there is a huge command line, shell and APIs available for power users, for people who want the next level of certification from VMware (VMware Certified Advanced Professional) you need to know how to do common GUI tasks via CLI and troubleshoot via CLI. There is a surprising amount of tools under the hood, but if you want to compare it to something Linux based I'm going to speculate that it isn't as extensive.
  - tbyehl 12y ago
    vCLI (Windows, Linux, & Linux appliance) and PowerCLI (Windows Powershell) are both quite extensive.
    - otterley 12y ago
      Why does every Linux admin who's worked with VMWare think the CLI tools are terrible? Do they require a JVM or other prerequisite to operate? Are they not natively packaged for common distributions? Do they use non-native conventions for the platform? (e.g. using / as an option argument prefix) Are they not simple scripts that could be ported to OS X and run from Homebrew? If my colleagues are just misinformed, that's one thing, but I'm hearing this feedback from people I generally trust. I'd love to have a neutral opinion on the CLI toolset quality.
      - jsmeaton 12y ago
        I looked into the vSphere APIs recently and they were pretty bad. The samples were written in C# and Java, with the Java samples being fairly well written. The C# samples were terrible. ManagedObjectReference dcmor = cb.getServiceUtil().GetDecendentMoRef(null,"Datacenter",dcName); There's a whole lot of ^ that all over the place. They expose very low level objects. AFAIK there are also lots of Perl examples floating around too, which may be nicer for the traditional admin.
snoman 12y ago
Docker looks like a really interesting concept, but to say that with docker you can "write once, run anywhere" is a misrepresentation at best, and an outright lie at worst. Looking at their docs (https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/ https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/) their idea of "running on windows" is "running in a virtualbox linux vm, on windows". That really rubs me the wrong way and I'm surprised that the HN community lets it slide.
- drcode 12y ago
  Docker is a new technology- I suspect the poor support that Windows has for Docker is going to cut into Microsoft's bottom line in the coming years. Microsoft MUST support high performance docker in the next year or I suspect they are going to lose a lot of server customers soon, if Docker's exponential adoption curve continues for the foreseeable future. Let's face it- Microsoft Windows is really just a legacy OS now... They either need to switch to a UNIX-derived kernel, which would allow for native docker support (amongst a million other advantages that come from sharing a sensible common infrastructure with other OSes) or they are headed for the dustbin of history pretty soon.
  - Bahamut 12y ago
    As nice as that would be, I don't see this happening until gaming gets popular on unix based platforms. Ths would be because then it becomes easier for consumers to flee to another OS. With gaming predominantly on Windows platforms for PCs, gamers have no choice but to use Windows to play most of the games they're interested in, which locks them into Windows.
  - jpgvm 12y ago
    No. Windows need not support Docker. Lets be honest. How many people are deploying WebLogic on Docker? How about SAP? How about any large enterprise back office application at all? You see, Windows Server serves an entirely different market. The kind of applications being deployed on OS level virtualisation just don't get deployed on Windows anyways. About as close as you are going to get are Java applications which even then are usually deployed on a point of abstraction like an application server. (At the end of the day RHEL is still much more common for big Java apps) That is not to say that Windows would not benefit from some sort of OS level virtualisation, only that it means absolutely nothing that they don't have it right now (or even for a few years). Windows Server will continue to dominate back office deployments ad infinitum.
zwischenzug 12y ago
I've been working to get a VMWare vCAC install going in my $corp. Have been avoiding talking about docker in meetings with them as I thought it would be embarrassing for them as privately I think it'll reduce VMWare's power. So very surprised by this!
alrs 12y ago
Has anyone told the Enterprise that Docker doesn't support Windows?
- wmf 12y ago
  Maybe they'll buy Parallels and rename Virtuozzo to Docker for Windows.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- drcode 12y ago
  Has anyone told Microsoft that new technology companies don't bother to support their outdated OS anymore?
grigio 12y ago
I don't understand why Docker cares about VMvare
- Spooky23 12y ago
  VMWare completely and utterly owns the enterprise space. Enterprises spend many billions on IT.
contingencies 12y ago
Wasn't there a recent study published on HN that concluded container-in-VM was really bad idea performance and security-wise, and that VM-in-container was really good?
- wmf 12y ago
  That conclusion really only applies to Linux; VMware can't run VMs in containers. When all you can run is VMs, then you'll promote $X in VMs for all $X. You might be thinking of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146536
flying_whale 12y ago
This helps explain VMware's vision behind the partnership. http://cto.vmware.com/vmware-docker-better-together/ http://cto.vmware.com/vmware-docker-better-together/

90 points by julien421 12y ago

> The companies are working together to ensure that the Docker Engine runs as a first-class citizen on developer workstations using VMware Fusion, data center servers with VMware vSphere, and vCloud Air, VMware’s public cloud. How about VMware Workstation?

chipx86 12y ago
Workstation and Fusion are, under the UI, practically the same application. If it works in Fusion, it should work fine in Workstation.

djb_hackernews 12y ago

46 days ago I made this comment: "crickets from VMWare/EMC. Docker/containers will eat their lunch if they don't jump in and get involved." after an announced partnership between the major tech players and Docker. I take it back and the more the merrier.

limaoscarjuliet 12y ago
Just a reminder, adding VMWare-like virtualization layer (i.e. full virtualization) to the mix will cost you more than 40% of your CPU: http://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0929052195DD819C85257D2300681E7B/$File/rc25482.pdf http://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0... In my view one of the key reasons to do it is to use AWS or the like. Until they have full Docker support on bare metal that is. P.S. There are other reasons, e.g. Docker makes it difficult to create a separate publicly visible network interface. But these I feel will go away soon as well.
- skybrian 12y ago
  Looks like VMWare is working on that too: http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2014/08/containers-vms-kubernetes-and-vmware.html http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com/2014/08/containers-v...
- acdha 12y ago
  > Just a reminder, adding VMWare-like virtualization layer (i.e. full virtualization) to the mix will cost you more than 40% of your CPU … on a couple of microbenchmarks when you define “CPU” to mean “I/O”. Even if you ignore the question of whether KVM performance is the same as VMware's (hint: no), most of the the charts in that paper contradict such a broad statement.
- jasongill 12y ago
  This article only mentions VMware twice in the body, both in passing. The majority of the article is a comparison of KVM and Docker. Many of the points in the article don't apply to VMware at all, or refer to things that are KVM specific limitations which VMware has already overcome. In fact, the article says "KVM has much higher overhead, higher than 40% in all measured cases." - saying nothing of "VMware-like virtualization" or VMware ESXi at all. While it's true that containerized "virtualization" traditionally has less overhead than a hypervisor like ESXi, the difference is increasingly small and in most environments negligible, especially considering the added features and flexibility of ESXi vs containers. From my experience and tests, the performance difference between an app in a container running on bare metal vs the same app running in VMware has been insignificant, so to say that there is a 40% performance penalty is probably disingenuous.
rsync 12y ago
Neither jail nor Solaris Zones ate vmwares lunch ...
- contingencies 12y ago
  VirtualBox is a bigger threat
  - nl 12y ago
    Because Oracle is easier to work with than VMWare? Wait, that doesn't seem right...
    - contingencies 12y ago
      No, because their feature set is similar for many purposes, their stuff works well cross-platform and is free. The way I see it, VMWare was a one trick pony and the horse has bolted, and while expanding their offering in to virtual networking topology provision and serious hardware infrastructure provision has been tried, it inevitably fails in subtle ways. Simply put: people need transparency in dynamic, modern infrastructure and they don't get it from 'put me in the middle' commercial vendors. Nor does the complexity cost of the mystical one size fits all virtualization solution magically dissipate when marketers invoke the ancient spirits of enterprise requirements.
      - nl 12y ago
        I'm not aware of many people using VirtualBox for server virtualization. That's where VMWare makes (almost all) of their money. VirtualBox isn't better in anyway then VMWare - except it is cheaper. That isn't really enough on its own (and there are plenty of more viable competitor of zero cost is all that matters: Xen, KVM, etc etc). OTOH, Docker is cheaper, faster, much less resource intensive, and less secure. That's disruptive, and much more difficult for VMWare to fight than another conventional virtualization competitor.
        12y ago

nilsimsa 12y ago

How does docker actually make money?

timdorr 12y ago
From their about page: https://www.docker.com/company/aboutus/ https://www.docker.com/company/aboutus/ Docker, Inc. offers Docker-related products and services and is creating a network of certified professional support, training, and services providers. We are committed to keeping Docker open source under the Apache 2.0 license. They used to be dotCloud, and presumably have some legacy clients still paying them money to keep the lights on.
- mattzito 12y ago
  They sold their dotCloud business so they could focus on core Docker.
corford 12y ago
They raised $15 million from Greylock and Benchmark which I guess will help keep the wolves at bay until they a). figure out how to monetize or b). get bought by Oracle/VMWare or similar

Thaxll 12y ago

What's the point of using Docker within a VM...?

pierre_massat 12y ago
"Providing machines for Kubernetes in not only necessary as a pool of raw cycles and bytes but also can provide a critical extra layer of security". [0] Maybe it's true for now, but containers may be enough security in the future. [0] http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2014/08/containers-vms-kubernetes-and-vmware.html http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.ca/2014/08/containers-vm...
daveoflynn 12y ago
It's vital if you use a Mac/Win as a dev machine.
joeblau 12y ago
@daveoflynn is correct the LXC founding that docker is built on only currently works in Linux.
- limaoscarjuliet 12y ago
  BTW, they are still Linux only, but do not use LXC anymore. LXC was replaced with libcontainer. http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/docker_0_9 http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/docker_0_9
lobster_johnson 12y ago
The reasons are actually not any different than when running on a dedicated machine; running containers is a good idea, regardless of whether it's a VM. Containerization is a smaller, granular unit of isolation than a VM, and it's complementary to virtualization, not a replacement/competitor.

nubela 12y ago

Here's my __obvious__ prediction: VMWare will buy Docker for billions, simply because docker will make VM obsolete.

mrbill 12y ago
Containers don't fit everyone's requirements; the need for "full machine" virtualization won't go away.
- WestCoastJustin 12y ago
  I think you are right and wrong. Many people are using "full machine" virtualization today, when what they wanted was just application isolation and resource control, but the only easy way to do this, was to use virtualization. As recipes & tutorials come out on how to migrate existing applications to containers from virtualization, I suspect people will review if they really need "full machine" virtualization, or just use a container. ps. Just to be clear, I think there is still a need for virtualization.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    > what they wanted was just application isolation Isolation of one trusted application from another trusted application for ease of configuration? Or did you have other forms of isolation in mind?
mattzito 12y ago
First: docker is not going to make VMs obsolete. Docker has their use cases: lightweight! PaaS! incremental push! 12-factor apps! VMs have their use cases: Strong isolation! online migration! completely portable! consolidation for traditional applications! So no, Docker will probably live alongside, next to, holding hands with, traditional VM environments, in much the same way that J2EE apps coexist with Rails. But, the other reason that VMware won't want to buy Docker is that over the long run, these technologies become increasingly commoditized. VMware's hypervisor was innovative when it first launched, and these days, you can argue that you can get much the same functionality from KVM or Hyper-V - or even in this case, LXC and Docker for a different set of use cases. Instead, VMware needs to make money on their management tools. Ideally, those management tools will be managing VMware's hypervisor, but they can't be afford to be so choosy. So, instead, they want a "first among equals" relationship with various open source technologies so they can be in the mix in every environment, even those where they haven't sold their hypervisor. That's why they won't buy Docker - they don't want to sell the platform, they want to manage everyone's platform. (note: everything I said is my own opinion, not that of my employer. We are coop-etitors with VMware in some of our business, and hence, I've got a conflict of interest I feel obligated to disclose).

astockwell 12y ago

More of an observation than anything, but Docker certainly has the corporate-ese marketing speak down pat. Much more so than most other "hot" OSS/platforms. Why such a different culture? Or are they just trying to climb into VMWare's bed?

superuser2 12y ago
Docker is more useful to people with more services to containerize, and that often means enterprise. To your average start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps, it's not nearly as much of a value-add.
- markbnj 12y ago
  Don't really agree with this. Being able to configure a new instance quickly and easily is useful no matter how large you are. For that matter, so is being able to spin up an isolated environment on a dev box as fast as you can start an editor.
  - frostmatthew 12y ago
    > Being able to configure a new instance quickly and easily is useful no matter how large you are. The comment you're replying to didn't say it wasn't useful for the "average start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps" - it said it's less useful ("not nearly as much of a value-add") compared to a large enterprise. When your entire environment runs on half a dozen VMs you have much less to gain by faster/easier provisioning then when you're running tens of thousands.
- drcode 12y ago
  > your average start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps DOESN'T REALIZE THE VALUE-ADD YET. FTFY.
simonpantzare 12y ago
I think Ben Golub plays a part in that. As superuser2 says, enterprises make up a large chunk of Docker's market. Github is also tapping into this segment—most of their recent hires are extensions to their enterprise support, sales, and account management teams.

otterley 12y ago

VMWare "management"? Is that even possible from the command line these days?

superuser2 12y ago
No. But a big slow Windows-only GUI seems to be exactly what enterprise customers demand.
networkguy 12y ago
VMware has a strong GUI focus for the majority of Sysadmins and Virtual Admins that use it. That said; there is a huge command line, shell and APIs available for power users, for people who want the next level of certification from VMware (VMware Certified Advanced Professional) you need to know how to do common GUI tasks via CLI and troubleshoot via CLI. There is a surprising amount of tools under the hood, but if you want to compare it to something Linux based I'm going to speculate that it isn't as extensive.
- tbyehl 12y ago
  vCLI (Windows, Linux, & Linux appliance) and PowerCLI (Windows Powershell) are both quite extensive.
  - otterley 12y ago
    Why does every Linux admin who's worked with VMWare think the CLI tools are terrible? Do they require a JVM or other prerequisite to operate? Are they not natively packaged for common distributions? Do they use non-native conventions for the platform? (e.g. using / as an option argument prefix) Are they not simple scripts that could be ported to OS X and run from Homebrew? If my colleagues are just misinformed, that's one thing, but I'm hearing this feedback from people I generally trust. I'd love to have a neutral opinion on the CLI toolset quality.
    - jsmeaton 12y ago
      I looked into the vSphere APIs recently and they were pretty bad. The samples were written in C# and Java, with the Java samples being fairly well written. The C# samples were terrible. ManagedObjectReference dcmor = cb.getServiceUtil().GetDecendentMoRef(null,"Datacenter",dcName); There's a whole lot of ^ that all over the place. They expose very low level objects. AFAIK there are also lots of Perl examples floating around too, which may be nicer for the traditional admin.

snoman 12y ago

Docker looks like a really interesting concept, but to say that with docker you can "write once, run anywhere" is a misrepresentation at best, and an outright lie at worst. Looking at their docs (https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/ https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/) their idea of "running on windows" is "running in a virtualbox linux vm, on windows". That really rubs me the wrong way and I'm surprised that the HN community lets it slide.

drcode 12y ago
Docker is a new technology- I suspect the poor support that Windows has for Docker is going to cut into Microsoft's bottom line in the coming years. Microsoft MUST support high performance docker in the next year or I suspect they are going to lose a lot of server customers soon, if Docker's exponential adoption curve continues for the foreseeable future. Let's face it- Microsoft Windows is really just a legacy OS now... They either need to switch to a UNIX-derived kernel, which would allow for native docker support (amongst a million other advantages that come from sharing a sensible common infrastructure with other OSes) or they are headed for the dustbin of history pretty soon.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  As nice as that would be, I don't see this happening until gaming gets popular on unix based platforms. Ths would be because then it becomes easier for consumers to flee to another OS. With gaming predominantly on Windows platforms for PCs, gamers have no choice but to use Windows to play most of the games they're interested in, which locks them into Windows.
- jpgvm 12y ago
  No. Windows need not support Docker. Lets be honest. How many people are deploying WebLogic on Docker? How about SAP? How about any large enterprise back office application at all? You see, Windows Server serves an entirely different market. The kind of applications being deployed on OS level virtualisation just don't get deployed on Windows anyways. About as close as you are going to get are Java applications which even then are usually deployed on a point of abstraction like an application server. (At the end of the day RHEL is still much more common for big Java apps) That is not to say that Windows would not benefit from some sort of OS level virtualisation, only that it means absolutely nothing that they don't have it right now (or even for a few years). Windows Server will continue to dominate back office deployments ad infinitum.

zwischenzug 12y ago

I've been working to get a VMWare vCAC install going in my $corp. Have been avoiding talking about docker in meetings with them as I thought it would be embarrassing for them as privately I think it'll reduce VMWare's power. So very surprised by this!

alrs 12y ago

Has anyone told the Enterprise that Docker doesn't support Windows?

wmf 12y ago
Maybe they'll buy Parallels and rename Virtuozzo to Docker for Windows.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
drcode 12y ago
Has anyone told Microsoft that new technology companies don't bother to support their outdated OS anymore?

grigio 12y ago

I don't understand why Docker cares about VMvare

Spooky23 12y ago
VMWare completely and utterly owns the enterprise space. Enterprises spend many billions on IT.

contingencies 12y ago

Wasn't there a recent study published on HN that concluded container-in-VM was really bad idea performance and security-wise, and that VM-in-container was really good?

wmf 12y ago
That conclusion really only applies to Linux; VMware can't run VMs in containers. When all you can run is VMs, then you'll promote $X in VMs for all $X. You might be thinking of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146536

flying_whale 12y ago

This helps explain VMware's vision behind the partnership. http://cto.vmware.com/vmware-docker-better-together/ http://cto.vmware.com/vmware-docker-better-together/