Developers today are under more pressure than ever to build apps faster. During the past year, applications became mission critical for businesses and paramount to society for sustaining connectivity, operations, services and more — all accelerating the need for greater developer velocity. The app development landscape, however, is complex with a multitude of microservices, frameworks, languages and architectures.

On  May 27, starting at 9 a.m. PDT, DockerCon LIVE 2021 will bring together a community of developers, contributors and partners to share, teach and collaborate to facilitate a greater understanding of modern app developers and their capabilities. The event is designed to show developers what’s new and possible with Docker so they can learn how to build better and faster.

“DockerCon has turned into the premier cloud developer conference where software developers get the latest in how to scale containers and cloud native apps powering today’s innovation,” said John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. “Docker pushed the envelope every year in the virtual event format, and this year is no different. They have one of the biggest, most robust virtual programs (powered by the CUBE365 cloud media platform) with the addition of community rooms for ad hoc group discussion by regions (countries) and by topics.”

Docker Inc.’s widely used collaborative app development platform allows teams to rapidly create innovative applications by simplifying workflows, offering trusted application components and integrating with leading developer tools. As such, the platform is accelerating software development from source code to cloud.

During the event, theCUBE will talk with industry executives, thought leaders and technology experts to discuss DevOps community news, Docker partner integration, standout use cases, the latest Docker features and technology updates, and future trends for modern application developers. (* Disclosure below.)

Accelerated momentum with a focus on developers

While the pandemic wreaked havoc on the global economy, Docker reported earlier this year that the number of Docker container pulls made from the Docker Hub repository increased 145% year over year in 2020. In the fourth quarter alone in 2020, there were 30 billion pulls from Docker Hub. 

The company’s Vice President of Product and Alliance Marketing Matt Carter attributed the growth to increased collaboration among developers under pressure to deliver applications faster. The pressure is due to efforts to accelerate existing digital business transformation initiatives and new initiatives yet to launch, according to Carter.

In March, Docker announced $23 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $58 million. The company said it would use the investment to drive further product innovation for millions of developers who rely on Docker for simplicity, choice and speed when building modern applications. 

“In the past year, applications have become paramount to not only all modern businesses, but also as the primary means to connect society, all of which has greatly accelerated the need for developer velocity,” said Scott Johnston, chief executive officer of Docker, about the funding. “This new investment, combined with our user and ARR growth momentum, validates Docker’s mission of helping developers and development teams bring their ideas to life by conquering the complexity of app development.” 

In addition to the increased number of image pulls from the Docker Hub repository, the funding comes after a year of continued momentum that includes year-over-year ARR growth of 170%. The company said that nearly 7.5 million developers and development teams, including those at Netflix, Wachovia and Orbital Sciences, rely on Docker to quickly and collaboratively build and share applications that can run anywhere.  

After Docker’s sale in November 2019 of its enterprise platform to Mirantis, it spent 2020 essentially resetting its business focus squarely on the developer community. The pivot seems to be a success. Since the sale, Docker has stayed true to its commitment to build an ecosystem of independent software vendors around its Docker Desktop development workbench and Docker Hub image repository. 

Docker has also gone out of its way to expand its ecosystem of partners, rather than go on its own. A partnership with Microsoft integrates Microsoft’s Azure public cloud and Visual Studio Code editor with Docker Desktop. Another deal with Snyk Ltd. delivers a native vulnerability scanning service for container images. And the company signed an agreement with Amazon Web Services Inc. to create a simplified workflow for developers using Docker Compose to build applications for Amazon’s Elastic Container Service and Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate.

As a result of these partnerships, the company has reduced much of the complexity for developers when it comes to configuring, provisioning and standing up infrastructure in those clouds.

The rise of app containerization

Docker Desktop continues to rise, likely because containers downloaded via Docker Hub make it easier for developers to build innovative applications. Many developers can easily construct an app prototype on a local device without having to first set up dedicated infrastructure.

The containerization of applications, popularized by Docker, has been increasingly adopted in recent times. This market is expected to register a CAGR of 29% over the forecast period 2021 to 2026, with the imposed pressure on core applications to be more flexible and to drive competitive differentiation. Organizations can leverage containers to streamline infrastructure, modernize legacy apps and bring their innovations more quickly to market because containers offer faster, more consistent release cycles.

DockerCon will include more than a dozen sessions featuring topics related to containers, a few of which are:

• An Ounce of Prevention: Curing Insecure Container Images
• The Last Mile of Local Containerization
• Container-based Development with Visual Studio Code
• The Docker and Container Ecosystem 101
• My container Image has 500 Vulnerabilities, Now What?

Two live panels are scheduled:

• Container First Development: Now and in the Future
• Sysadminless: Running Containers Without Servers

Going virtual early

Last year, DockerCon was one of the first conferences to go virtual. Docker made the decision to move DockerCon to a virtual platform in December, well before the global pandemic forced other previously live events to transition to an online-only format. As a result, the event experienced a significant jump in participants, from over 4,000 during the 2019 in-person event to 70,000 people registered from around the globe.

“Even though we wanted to do an in-person event this year, we didn’t want to lose the time when we all come together at DockerCon, the conversations, the content and learning opportunities,” said Jenny Burcio, community, advocacy and developer relations at Docker, speaking with theCUBE during last year’s DockerCon. “You can really see how containerization and developers are moving an industry and humanity forward because of what they’re able to build and create with advances in technology.”

This year’s DockerCon, a free one-day virtual event, offers sessions that are interactive and designed for flexible consumption that day and beyond. For developers new to Docker, or those who wish to grow their skills in a new area, pre-day instructor-led workshops will deliver hands-on training focused on getting started with Docker or a number of learning areas for a deeper learning experience.

And, of course, theCUBE will be there to provide insights from leading executives at Docker, selected partners such as AWS, and Docker users.

Livestream of DockerCon

DockerCon is a livestream event, with interviews to be broadcasted on theCUBE. You can register for free here to access the live event. Plus, you can watch theCUBE interviews here on demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch the live coverage of DockerCon, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE during DockerCon include Adrian Ionel, CEO of Mirantis; Om Moolchandani, chief information security officer and chief technology officer of Accurics; Dana Lawson, vice president of engineering at GitHub; Matt Falk, VP of engineering, data science and computer vision at Orbital Insight; and Fabian Lange, founder and VP of engineering at Instana, an IBM company.

TheCUBE will also speak with Massimo Re Ferre, principal technologist at Amazon Web Services; Jim Walker, VP of product marketing at Cockroach Labs Inc.; Simon Maple, field chief technology officer at Snyk; and Deepak Singh, VP of compute services at Amazon Web Service.

Plus, don’t miss theCUBE’s interviews with Justin Cormack, CTO of Docker, and Donnie Berkholz, VP of products at Docker.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the DockerCon Live 2021 digital event. Neither Docker, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE