Docker, Inc. has made quite an impact in the industry since its debut just less than two years ago. Plus, with the company’s recently announced collaboration with VMware, Inc., Google, Inc. and Pivotal Software, Inc., there’s no sign of it slowing down anytime soon. Docker has tremendous potential to disrupt the virtualization space that only a few technologies can rival, but questions are being raised about Docker’s product lifecycle management capabilities.

Cisco Systems, Inc. Senior Director of Engineering, Cloud Networking & Service Group Howie Xu, claimed on an interview for theCUBE at VMworld last week that Docker’s product lifecycle management is not really up to par. (See the entire interview below.)

In terms of networking primitives, Docker already has in it some equivalence to the Linux Bridge Open vSwitch (OVS). It also has the potential to be ten times faster and more efficient than virtual machines (VMs). However, Docker’s problem lies in its lack of provisioning and life cycle management. Xu stated that all the uninteresting day-to-day things, like CPU memory management, storage management and networking management, don’t quite exist.

Xu believes that the core technology is there, but that it only corresponds with 10% of the product. The remaining 90 percent of the product is all about having to deal with the boring, day-to-day management. “Someone needs to pick that up, and then take that challenge, and then do it,” advised Xu.

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