5
0
Containers have become a critical tool in the modern developer's toolbox, and they are particularly useful in hybrid cloud environments, an area where IBM excels. At DockerCon 2015 today, IBM announced that it will be adding production support for IBM Containers to Bluemix, which effectively brings Cloud Foundry and Docker together for developers into one native platform. If you've been waiting for an enterprise-class, Docker-based container service, your wait is over.
IBM Containers is a full runtime and management environment that enables developers to host Docker containers in the cloud. By incorporating container services into Bluemix, IBM has created a more efficient environment that enables faster integration and access to analytics, big data, and security services.
Key features include:
- Integrated DevOps functionality such as log analytics, performance monitoring, image build services, and delivery pipeline
- Elastic scaling groups with auto recovery
- Zero downtime deployments utilizing Active Deploy
- Full networking with private overlays, load balancing, and automated routing
- Integration with Cloud Foundry services
- Support for persistent storage volumes
- Automated container image security and vulnerability scanning with Vulnerability Advisor
We can hardly contain ourselves
All joking aside, this is a huge announcement that merits a deep dive, and there's no one better to do that than IBM Fellow Jason McGee, whose blog post, "Containers: The answer to modern development demands," offers a detailed overview of today's announcement.
Ready to get your hands dirty using containers now? These tutorials from developerWorks will give you some excellent experience:
- Build and use Docker on the IBM POWER Linux platform
- Use notebooks in the cloud for great data science
More are on the way, so keep your eyes peeled and your browser bookmarked to the developerWorks Bluemix page.
Additionally, check out the replay of this webcast, which demonstrates how the service works and details how you can get started with IBM Containers on Bluemix. You'll learn how the IBM Container service lets developers launch Docker containers directly onto the cloud with Docker-native features, standardized interfaces, and orchestration services. And you'll see how this powerful development solution can help you create and manage a new generation of portable distributed applications that have a dynamic lifecycle and can scale to run in concert anywhere from the developer’s laptop to hundreds of hosts in the cloud.
