ClusterHQ, the startup that’s driving development of the popular open-source Flocker container manager, has just announced new partnerships with ConvergeIO, Hedvig, Huawei, NetApp and Nexenta to provide enterprises with integrated solutions that simplify storage provisioning and data persistence for Docker volumes.

ClusterHQ’s new partners have developed, or are in the process developing, new storage drivers for Flocker that will allow their customers to combine the software with their software-defined storage (SDS) solutions to create “portable container-level” storage for Docker.

Flocker is a solution that makes it simple to move Docker container apps and their data. Docker containers are rapidly growing in popularity among devs, but one of the main challenges is that not all application components can be easily moved from one server to another. In particular, stateful services like databases are a difficult match for the container model, and that’s what Flocker is intended to solve. Flocker is compatible with most popular tools in the container ecosystem, including Docker Compose, Docker Swarm and Apache Mesos.

With regards to its new partnerships, ClusterHQ says that while Docker has already seen significant adoption in the enterprise, issues like data management and persistent storage remain big barriers to any further uptake. That’s where the storage drivers come in – they allow customers to put entirely containerized applications into production environments, including the critical databases that underly them.

“An important ecosystem is emerging of key players looking to accelerate the adoption of containers in enterprise production environments. We’re thrilled at the interest we’ve received from leaders and innovators in the storage space that are interested in integrating with Flocker to deliver flexible, shared portable storage for Docker,” said Mark Davis, CEO, ClusterHQ.

ClusterHQ said that Flocker is designed to work with any kind of storage system. As such, it’s encouraging other storage providers to create Flocker drivers so their products can also work with Docker.

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