If the first half of the first decade of the 21st Century has been about virtualization, the next half-decade may be dominated by a new approach, the anti-virtualization tool called Docker.

Docker, to paraphrase the old Suave shampoo commercial, “does what theirs does for a lot less.” In this case, “theirs” is the hypervisor-based virtual machine. And “a lot less” refers to overhead demands and performance hits, both heavily in Docker’s favor.

The good and bad of Docker

Applications developed in Docker containers can run on anything from a laptop, to a virtual machine to the cloud with no changes. That separation of infrastructure from applications, plus its open  source value proposition and comparative ease-of-use and deployment make Docket the easy choice for building, shipping and running distributed applications.

Docker gives users the ability to run multiple containerized applications simultaneously on a single piece of hardware, running a single instance of an operating system. It runs multiple applications on a single machine, rather than creating multiple virtual machines (each with its own OS installation, anti-malware, etc.) on a single hardware platform.

The downside, at least for now, is that virtualization is a mature and established technology with lots of supporters. Docker is new and not yet established, but that is rapidly changing as Docker, too, has lots of supporters.

Depending on how old you are, Docker either harkens back to VMS, makes good on some of the failed promise of PC multitasking or is a potential VMware killer.  Docker is as exciting a development tool as anything that has happened since the introduction of Java.

What are some of Docker’s implications?

• VMware’s growth is likely to suffer. First, Microsoft seems to be syphoning off virtualization customers while Docker is capturing the hearts-and-minds of developers.

• For EMC, which owns VMware, its ownership of Pivotal gives it an open source story and the potential to capitalize on Docker’s growth. EMC is positioned to win regardless of where the market goes and, especially, if VMware and Docker both do well in the near term.

• Virtual machines will remain important well into the next decade, but as legacy apps running atop legacy operating systems wane, so will virtualization.

• Docker confirms the wisdom of customers’ investment in Linux. And in the value of open source.

• Docker has received $25 million in venture funding, so investors see the opportunity for its earning service and support revenue. How big an opportunity this becomes will remain to be seen. By comparison, Red Hat has revenue of $1.5 billion-a-year. A nice-sized company, for sure, but small in the enterprise computing space.

• It is too early to say whether Docket is good or bad for hardware companies. Breaking the link between infrastructure and applications is good for customers but vendors may hate it. I’ll let you decide.

• Demand for Docker running on clouds — public, private or hybrid — could help shuffle that market just a bit. Advantage Microsoft Azure? Maybe.

• Who will eventually purchase Docker? Now may be the time for someone to acquire the company. Let’s imagine a $200-$300 million investment. Maybe too big for Red Hat, the obvious buyer, but not so big for, well, pretty much anyone else.

• After the HeartBleed/OpenSSL disaster, Docker is a reminder that open source really is a good way to bring technology to market and quickly commoditize it.

What do you think?

I’d like to hear your thoughts about Docker — what you like, don’t like and what the future holds. Feel free to drop me a line.