Docker is Dead, Long Live the Container

[Headline Novmeber 3, 2019] Mirantis announces that it has acquired Docker’s Enterprise business and team.

With this deal, Mirantis is acquiring Docker Enterprise Technology Platform and all associated IP: Docker Enterprise Engine, Docker Trusted Registry, Docker Unified Control Plane and Docker CLI. This amounts to what is the heart of Docker. Docker has been floundering since Kubernetes stole its seat at the lunch table. Where does this leave the rest of us? Mirantis says it will focus on Docker Enterprise that runs on Kubernetes. What's left for != Docker Inc.? Docker is going to focus on workflows for developers and continue work on Docker Desktop and Docker Hub.

All this sets a shelve life for docker swarm for about 2022. What about the rest of Docker? Will docker pull still exist in 2 years. Every time you run docker pull now it cost Docker money in term of storage and bandwidth. Docker (not Docker enterprise) did cost get an infusion of cash. But how long will that last? Does Docker hub even matter still? Kubernetes doesn't require you to use the Docker runtime. Dockerfile doesn't even matter, you can easily build repeatable container images with Packer and other tools. As Kubernetes-as-a-service becomes more of a thing will Kubernetes even matter? Cloud providers will care but they will be the ones abstracting this all way from us normie Operators.

Even with the new restructuring, the future for Docker is bleak. Docker may have set off the age of the container but it will not be able to capitalize on it. No matter what the underlying orchestration is containers will be here to stay as the next evolution in virtualization.

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