

Orchard and Fig are joining Docker - eloycoto
http://blog.docker.com/2014/07/welcoming-the-orchard-and-fig-team/
Good and bad news:
- Orchard close
- First Docker office in Europe. 
- Fig continue up&amp;running 
- New Developer Experience group
======
skrebbel
As an Orchard customer, I'm _really_ happy about this. Orchard is a cool
service, but their customer service is pretty amateuristic. I think they have
all the potential of upping their game given sufficient resources (which I
assume they are now getting). If Orchard becomes the go-to "just dump them
containers in our cloud" solution for Docker, then great times are ahead!

EDIT: oh fuck, they're shutting down? damn, that's shitty. Also the link from
the docker.com blog post to [https://www.orchardup.com/blog/orchard-is-
joining-docker](https://www.orchardup.com/blog/orchard-is-joining-docker) is
broken, and no info at all on
[https://www.orchardup.com/blog](https://www.orchardup.com/blog). Typical.

~~~
aanand
Very sorry you had to hear it from HN - we had our email, blog post etc. ready
to go out but there was a scheduling mishap. We also emailed our active
customers from last month in advance yesterday.

The space has matured a lot, so there are some great alternatives out there.
Happy to help you migrate - give me a shout at aanand@orchardup.com

~~~
webmaven
Release Orchard backend as open source? Note: Consider _why_ fig took off and
Orchard didn't...

No one wants to be stuck on a provider that might not succeed and have to
migrate to a different one unless the new provider is drop-in compatible. It
is nice that you are providing migration instructions and help, but the very
_idea_ of being at the mercy of an acquired platform's team is what stops me
from trying such services in the first place (after being burned by ep.io,
30loops, etc.).

~~~
bfirsh
The nice thing about using Docker is that everything is drop-in compatible.
You can push your images to a provider such as Tutum or Google Cloud and
they'll be able to run. If you've written any software that used the Docker
remote API on Orchard, you can just point that are your own Docker daemon and
it'll keep on working.

~~~
webmaven
If that were really true, the migration instructions would be more along the
lines of "change the endpoint URL to your new provider", or "push this one
button and authenticate", instead of
[https://www.orchardup.com/docs/moving](https://www.orchardup.com/docs/moving)

That said, kudos to the Orchard team for making it as easy as they did, I'll
just stress again that the _fear_ that migrating would be even more involved
was what stopped me from trying their service in the first place.

There are several ways of addressing that fear:

1\. Be so big that you know the service is unlikely to be shut down or
acquired (that just leaves the usual lock-in concerns over future price hikes
and the like, which isn't going to happen until the market stops growing).

2\. Ensure that a fluid marketplace of drop-in replacement competitors exists
(an Open Source release of the backend helps with this)

3\. Document how easy it is to switch away from the get go, not just when
you're shutting down: see
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140209113413/https://orchardup...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140209113413/https://orchardup.com/docs)
and
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html)

------
sandGorgon
Is fig the authoritative way to deploy a bunch of Docker instances for a
fairly basic stack - web server, DB, elasticsearch ?

I started off thinking about Ansible, but it seems most people on #docker were
using Fig. But I dont know what people are doing _in production_

~~~
aanand
Fig works in production, but it's not our focus. We wrote a blog post on it a
while back - it's Orchard-specific, but covers what you need to think about,
especially in the "Configuring for deployment" section:

[https://www.orchardup.com/blog/develop-and-deploy-an-app-
wit...](https://www.orchardup.com/blog/develop-and-deploy-an-app-with-fig-and-
orchard)

~~~
sandGorgon
Are you planning on retaining fig in its current form or probably merging it
into Chef/Ansible?

In the long term, do you believe that having a very specific CM tools is going
to be better than supporting something having a lit of mind share?

------
terhechte
I really love fig, it is a great tool to easily deploy multiple containers
without a hassle and without having to know the intricacies of the docker
command line. I nowadays use it for all my projects. Great to see it joining
Docker. Very cool.

------
justincormack
Great news that Orchard are staying in London and there is now a European
Docker office.

------
quarterto
This is great news for the Docker community, and for Ben and Aanand. I knew
Ben at university, great guy. With them looking after Developer Experience,
I'm excited to see what's next for Docker.

------
skrebbel
Is fig going to stick around and be improved, or are Ben and Aanand going to
drop it and make something slightly similar right into Docker? We're currently
not using it, but maybe we should.

~~~
aanand
A bit of both. Fig is going to stick around, but over time parts of it will
find their way into Docker. It won't be deprecated unless there's a better
official solution.

~~~
skrebbel
Thanks, I appreciate the honest and direct answer. If we're looking to replace
a bash hack now (which works but isn't the prettiest), would you recommend
diving into Fig or waiting until Docker becomes Figgier?

~~~
aanand
Oh, I'd absolutely recommend diving into Fig. We'll have a lot of Fig users to
transition over once it happens, and want to make sure it's a smooth (i.e.
documented) process.

------
tlrobinson
I hope Fig or something like it makes it's way into official Docker tools.

After wrestling with "Makefile orchestration" for Docker containers then
discovering Fig, it's clearly a useful tool.

------
kingrolo
This is brilliant news. fig is really handy, and I'm hoping this means we now
have an officially blessed way to manage multi container setups.

------
jonty
SO pleased for Ben & Aanand, this is the best possible outcome for
Orchard/Fig. Brilliant news.

------
outside1234
Question - has anyone gone whole hog on deploying containers? If so, are you
using something like CoreOS or something else to deploy them?

------
patja
I always thought this was Orchard:
[http://www.orchardproject.net/](http://www.orchardproject.net/)

~~~
zo1
I was also very confused, and the first google search for Orchard was the one
you came across. My first thought was, "this is an .Net CMS, I thought docker
was unix-based?"

Then I was like, Okay, let's go see what "Fig" is. None of the links on the
first search page were for Fig. I got everything from food websites, stock
codes, to random content-spam URLs with Fig in it.

I'm sorry, but these guys really picked _bad_ names for their products. It's
really ridiculous because those names have well-established meanings. Sure, if
they get famous enough, their rankings will make their alternate-meaning of
those words bubble up. But until then, they're invisible to most of the web.

Heck, the linked article doesn't even have a link to Orchard, but rather to a
blog post on their domain. If anyone really struggles, here are their links:

[http://www.fig.sh/](http://www.fig.sh/)
[https://www.orchardup.com/](https://www.orchardup.com/)

*Edit: Searching for "Fig Software" led me to software companies with "Fig" in it, and some Facebook pages. Again, not the actual Fig I was looking for.

~~~
mplewis
[http://blog.docker.com/2014/07/welcoming-the-orchard-and-
fig...](http://blog.docker.com/2014/07/welcoming-the-orchard-and-fig-team/)
features links to Orchard and Fig in the first sentence.

~~~
zo1
I'm pretty sure the Orchard link wasn't there when I first read the article. I
distinctly remember searching through the page for Fig and Orchard. The way I
actually found Orchard was through the linked blog post near the bottom of the
article, then cut out the blog part of the URL to go to their main domain.

