The Doppler Quarterly Winter 2016 | Page 45

Providing Business Value Key leaders in many IT organizations are grasping containers’ potential for accelerating development cycles and lowering operational costs. ward by the open-source development community, not just Docker the company. VMware chose a closed, Microsoft-style model for its virtualization project, and not surprisingly found itself with Microsoft as a direct (and eventually competent) competitor. Docker has so far stayed true to its open-source roots, and while Docker the company may or may not stay at the forefront of the container movement, Docker the technology almost assuredly will main- tain its position and relevance for the foreseeable future. Kubernetes, Rocket, LXD, Spoonium, and oth- ers will all have their auditions and followers within the open source container community, but ultimately the majority of developers will gravitate towards the best of breed – and Docker has that crown for the foreseeable future. Conclusion Common IT wisdom holds that Docker containers aren’t ready for prime time, and that a “wait and see” stance is most appropriate. To the casual IT observer, the Docker container standard seems relatively new and untested, even though it is based on Linux con- tainer technology (LXC) which has been under devel- opment since 2006. My take is that container ubiquity is not all that far off, and that many of the perceived obstacles are already being addressed. Both new and traditional IT organizations are overcoming the inherent chal- lenges of new tech and leveraging Docker containers for competitive advantage NOW. Organizations that adopt a passive stance on containers do so at their own risk. Myth 6 Status: BUSTED! WINTER 2016 | THE DOPPLER | 43