After two years of gathering hype and bringing attention to long-neglected Linux containers, Docker announced today in Amsterdam that it will offer Docker Hub Enterprise, its first commercial product offering, in February of 2015.
Docker Hub Enterprise is an on-site version of the company’s popular online repository for Docker images. That repository currently weighs in at more than 100,000 users and organizations, but David Messina, vice president of enterprise marketing at Docker, said that enterprises and organizations were asking for a hosted version of the storage system.
(Related: Docker partners with Microsoft)
“Enterprises see Docker as the foundation of their next generation of distributed applications,” he said. “Because of that, and the model built around it of discrete micro-services, each Docker container that ends up being a service needs to be stored behind their firewall, and it has to tie into workflows, encryption keys, security and governance.”
This is the first time companies will be able to pony up cash for products from this Valley darling startup. It’s also the first time recent Docker acquisition, Koality, will be brought to bear upon Docker’s enterprise users.
“The team responsible for building this has a ton of experience in [enterprise software],” said Messina. “[The former Koality team] has a ton of experience working with enterprise software in the life cycle, and all their background is from Palantir.”
(Palantir is the giant software firm known for working with the NSA and the Department of Defense on very large, very secret and secure projects.)
Today’s announcement was made alongside other significant additions to the Docker platform. Specifically, the company announced a whole array of new features for its core platform, which will allow developers to more easily compose multi-container applications.
Docker Machine, Docker Swarm and Docker Compose join the platform as new orchestration services for coordinating containers.
Docker Machine will handle the provisioning of Docker hosts from Docker images. Docker Swarm will handle multi-container service coordination, and Docker Compose will give developers a way to verbalize multi-container application models.
Docker and IBM also jointly announced bringing Docker Hub Enterprise into IBM’s cloud, and announced the availability of enterprise services based on Docker from IBM.
