Microsoft Corp. and Docker Inc. today launched the first release of a landmark integration between their products that’s aimed at easing the development of cloud-based container applications.

Last month, the two long-time partners announced an expanded alliance at Docker’s recent virtual DockerCon event. The collaboration’s main focus is easing application development for joint customers. To that end, the companies said they will integrate Microsoft’s Azure public cloud and Virtual Studio Code code editor with Docker Desktop, Docker’s developer toolkit for building containerized applications.

The integration is now available to users. It’s currently in the edge release phase, meaning there’s still some testing and finalization to be done.

The Docker Desktop includes several different tools. The alliance with Microsoft focuses mainly on Docker CLI, the command line tool through which developers work with their Docker containers, and Docker Compose, a piece of software for building multicontainer applications.

Developers now have the ability to log into Azure via the Docker CLI instead of having to open a separate window. They can then access Azure Container Instances, Microsoft’s managed container hosting service, and create a new Docker container in the service from the same command line interface. The Docker CLI also makes it possible to define configuration settings and run other other common commands for tasks such as inspecting a container.

“There’s a whole slew of automation and pre-configured smart defaults, or sane defaults, that have gone on behind the scenes and it [took] a lot of hardcore engineering work on part of Docker-Microsoft together to simplify that and make that easy,” Docker Chief Executive Scott Johnston (pictured, right) said in an interview on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE during DockerCon this month. Johnston was joined by Amanda Silver, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of developer tools (left).

Larger Docker applications are often made up of multiple individual containers. Microsoft has added an integration with Docker Compose, Docker’s tool for building multicontainer applications, so that such workloads may also be deployed directly to Azure Container Instances.

After the initial deployment, developers can use the command line interface to maintain and manage their applications. “The other thing that we really want to make sure is that even post-deployment, you can actually inspect and diagnose these containers and images without having to leave the tool,” explained Microsoft’s Amanda Silver. 

“If something’s wrong, you can actually open up a shell and be in an interactive mode and be able to look at the logs from those containers and even inspect one to see environment variables or other details,” Silver said.

Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code code editor is another element of the collaboration. Microsoft has built a Docker extension for the tool that enables developers to start, stop, and manage their containers and related files from the same interface in which they write the code running inside those containers. 

Photo: SiliconANGLE