UPDATED 04:00 EDT / OCTOBER 18 2017

CLOUD

IBM to add Docker Enterprise Edition to its public cloud

Software container company Docker Inc. is teaming up with IBM Corp. as it looks for ways to extend its reach into the enterprise.

The companies said they’re planning to offer a special edition of Docker for IBM Cloud, with the main advantage being that they can tap into IBM’s cloud services to make applications smarter.

In a blog post, Jason McGee, IBM Cloud Platform’s vice president and chief technology officer, points out that his company and Docker already have an extensive history of working together to enable software containers. The fruits of that relationship are already visible, as the companies teamed up to make the Docker Enterprise Edition platform available for Linux on IBM z Systems, LinuxONE and Power Systems earlier this year in support of hybrid cloud environments. More recently, Docker added support for IBM’s mainframes. Now, by making Docker Enterprise Edition available on IBM’s cloud as well, the companies seem to be taking their partnership to the next level.

McGee said this is an important step because enterprises can never have enough options as they look to integrate critical infrastructure and workloads in the cloud. He added that with the new partnership, customers will be able to move their containerized applications, which can run on multiple computing environments, to IBM’s cloud much faster than before, then extend them to IBM’s range of cloud services to help make them more intelligent and competitive.

“Once these existing workloads are transitioned to the IBM Cloud via Docker containers, enterprise teams will be able to rapidly connect and integrate them with the services that make the IBM public cloud so attractive to many,” McGee wrote. “That means companies can take their monolithic applications and make them smarter with Watson, without having to change the original application.”

Further cementing their relationship, IBM said it’s also joining Docker’s Modernize Traditional Applications Program to help customers advance their digital transformation projects. An increasing number of organizations are looking at how they can take their existing legacy apps and make them run on hybrid and public cloud infrasturcture. IBM and Docker say that the best way to do so is to put those apps in containers before migrating them. As an official Docker MTA program partner, Big Blue says it will be able to help more of its customers containerize and migrate their apps to its cloud platform.

Finally, the new arrangement will see IBM make some of its software available in the Docker Store. This software includes its WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ and the IBM DB2 database.

The companies said they’re working to deliver Docker for IBM Cloud as soon as possible, with a beta test version in the fourth quarter.

Image: Distel2610/Pixabay

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