DockerCon was about more than just the Open Container Project

The Open Container Project was the DockerCon “shot heard ’round the world”. The news that Docker and CoreOS worked out their differences and united in a common effort along with just about every major tech company to develop and maintain container standards has dominated the DockerCon headlines–but it’s not the only news that came out of the event.

I wrote this blog post about some of the other announcements that should make organizations and developers very happy:

DevOps has taken the IT world by storm, and Docker has been a driving force behind DevOps. In only a couple of years, the company has skyrocketed from obscure startup to ubiquitous container platform. This week at DockerCon in San Francisco, the company and its many partners and allies demonstrated just how much momentum container technologies have and unleashed some major initiatives that should make developers ecstatic.

Moves build buzz, builders to build out

Docker had seemingly abandoned its original vision of a container standard, and CoreOS stepped in to continue the mission. Docker and CoreOS have reunited though, along with A-list tech giants, including Microsoft, Google, IBM, HP, and others to work together on container standards through the Open Container Project (OCP).

Jaikumar Vijayan wrote a detailed overview of the OCP initiative. He explains, “Under the OCP, the two companies will contribute code from their respective container technologies to develop a common, open container image format and container runtime. The Linux Foundation will host the project and oversee the development of the specification and runtime environment by the open source community.”

Ben Bernstein, CEO of Twistlock, pointed out that Docker is maturing. With that maturity comes an understanding that in order to continue to succeed and grow it’s not enough to just have a great ecosystem—you also have to actively support and nurture it. Sometimes that means making some concessions and playing nicely with others.

Expanding the Docker ecosystem

OCP may be the star of the show, but there’s plenty of other news from DockerCon to make developers’ lives easier and streamline DevOps and container infrastructure. Software-defined networking (SDN) and plugins are all part of the broader platform aimed at delivering what Docker founder and CTO Solomon Hykes called “happy hacking” in the closing of his keynote.

These events are always an opportunity to brag about metrics and milestones, and the numbers showcasing ecosystem adoption for Docker are simply stunning. Al Hilwa, program director of software development research for IDC notes, “Docker the company itself took a significant step forward in monetizing its technology. What Docker is now calling Trusted Registry is being made available just as adoption is beginning to reach mainstream organizations.” So in all, there’s a lot to be happy about for the ecosystem.

You can see the full store on TechBeacon: Docker gives developers plenty to be happy about at DockerCon.