
Docker and VMWare - julien421
https://blog.docker.com/2014/08/docker-vmware-1-1-3/
======
snoman
Docker looks like a really interesting concept, but to say that with docker
you can "write once, run anywhere" is a misrepresentation at best, and an
outright lie at worst.

Looking at their docs
([https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/](https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/))
their idea of "running on windows" is "running in a virtualbox linux vm, on
windows".

That really rubs me the wrong way and I'm surprised that the HN community lets
it slide.

~~~
drcode
Docker is a new technology- I suspect the poor support that Windows has for
Docker is going to cut into Microsoft's bottom line in the coming years.
Microsoft MUST support high performance docker in the next year or I suspect
they are going to lose a lot of server customers soon, if Docker's exponential
adoption curve continues for the foreseeable future.

Let's face it- Microsoft Windows is really just a legacy OS now... They either
need to switch to a UNIX-derived kernel, which would allow for native docker
support (amongst a million other advantages that come from sharing a sensible
common infrastructure with other OSes) or they are headed for the dustbin of
history pretty soon.

~~~
lobster_johnson
> Windows is really just a legacy OS now

As much as I dislike Windows, there is a whole world of "enterprise" software
running on Windows that isn't going away. SQL Server and Active Directory come
to mind as Microsoft products being heavily and actively invested in by the
enterprise.

If you're in the Ruby/Python/Go/Docker/whatever echo chamber it's easy to miss
the other echo chambers out there. There are tons of companies out there still
making a decent living from developing and maintaining software in curiously
tenacious tech like Delphi, FileMaker and MUMPS.

~~~
drcode
> There are tons of companies out there still making a decent living from
> developing and maintaining software in curiously tenacious tech like Delphi,
> FileMaker and MUMPS.

Right, those are the very definition of legacy software... so where is your
disagreement with me?

~~~
lobster_johnson
Those were two separate, unrelated points (though a lot of people would
disagree that Delphi and MUMPS are legacy software, though FileMaker surely
is).

------
astockwell
More of an observation than anything, but Docker certainly has the corporate-
ese marketing speak down pat. Much more so than most other "hot"
OSS/platforms. Why such a different culture? Or are they just _trying_ to
climb into VMWare's bed?

~~~
superuser2
Docker is more useful to people with more services to containerize, and that
often means enterprise. To your average start-up with at most a couple of
Rails apps, it's not nearly as much of a value-add.

~~~
markbnj
Don't really agree with this. Being able to configure a new instance quickly
and easily is useful no matter how large you are. For that matter, so is being
able to spin up an isolated environment on a dev box as fast as you can start
an editor.

~~~
frostmatthew
> Being able to configure a new instance quickly and easily is useful no
> matter how large you are.

The comment you're replying to didn't say it _wasn 't_ useful for the "average
start-up with at most a couple of Rails apps" \- it said it's _less_ useful
("not nearly as much of a value-add") compared to a large enterprise.

When your entire environment runs on half a dozen VMs you have much less to
gain by faster/easier provisioning then when you're running tens of thousands.

------
djb_hackernews
46 days ago I made this comment: "crickets from VMWare/EMC. Docker/containers
will eat their lunch if they don't jump in and get involved."

after an announced partnership between the major tech players and Docker.

I take it back and the more the merrier.

~~~
limaoscarjuliet
Just a reminder, adding VMWare-like virtualization layer (i.e. full
virtualization) to the mix will cost you more than 40% of your CPU:
[http://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0...](http://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0929052195DD819C85257D2300681E7B/$File/rc25482.pdf)

In my view one of the key reasons to do it is to use AWS or the like. Until
they have full Docker support on bare metal that is.

P.S. There are other reasons, e.g. Docker makes it difficult to create a
separate _publicly visible_ network interface. But these I feel will go away
soon as well.

~~~
acdha
> Just a reminder, adding VMWare-like virtualization layer (i.e. full
> virtualization) to the mix will cost you more than 40% of your CPU

… on a couple of microbenchmarks when you define “CPU” to mean “I/O”. Even if
you ignore the question of whether KVM performance is the same as VMware's
(hint: no), most of the the charts in that paper contradict such a broad
statement.

------
nilsimsa
How does docker actually make money?

~~~
timdorr
From their about page:
[https://www.docker.com/company/aboutus/](https://www.docker.com/company/aboutus/)

    
    
      Docker, Inc. offers Docker-related products and services and is creating a network 
      of certified professional support, training, and services providers. We are 
      committed to keeping Docker open source under the Apache 2.0 license.
    

They used to be dotCloud, and presumably have some legacy clients still paying
them money to keep the lights on.

~~~
mattzito
They sold their dotCloud business so they could focus on core Docker.

------
walterbell
> The companies are working together to ensure that the Docker Engine runs as
> a first-class citizen on developer workstations using VMware Fusion, data
> center servers with VMware vSphere, and vCloud Air, VMware’s public cloud.

How about VMware Workstation?

~~~
chipx86
Workstation and Fusion are, under the UI, practically the same application. If
it works in Fusion, it should work fine in Workstation.

------
zwischenzug
I've been working to get a VMWare vCAC install going in my $corp. Have been
avoiding talking about docker in meetings with them as I thought it would be
embarrassing for them as privately I think it'll reduce VMWare's power.

So very surprised by this!

------
flying_whale
This helps explain VMware's vision behind the partnership.

[http://cto.vmware.com/vmware-docker-better-
together/](http://cto.vmware.com/vmware-docker-better-together/)

------
alrs
Has anyone told the Enterprise that Docker doesn't support Windows?

~~~
drcode
Has anyone told Microsoft that new technology companies don't bother to
support their outdated OS anymore?

------
contingencies
Wasn't there a recent study published on HN that concluded container-in-VM was
really bad idea performance and security-wise, and that VM-in-container was
really good?

~~~
wmf
That conclusion really only applies to Linux; VMware can't run VMs in
containers. When all you can run is VMs, then you'll promote $X in VMs for all
$X.

You might be thinking of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146536)

------
Thaxll
What's the point of using Docker within a VM...?

~~~
joeblau
@daveoflynn is correct the LXC founding that docker is built on only currently
works in Linux.

~~~
limaoscarjuliet
BTW, they are still Linux only, but do not use LXC anymore. LXC was replaced
with libcontainer.
[http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/docker_0_9](http://www.infoq.com/news/2014/03/docker_0_9)

------
nubela
Here's my __obvious__ prediction: VMWare will buy Docker for billions, simply
because docker will make VM obsolete.

~~~
mattzito
First: docker is not going to make VMs obsolete.

Docker has their use cases: lightweight! PaaS! incremental push! 12-factor
apps!

VMs have their use cases: Strong isolation! online migration! completely
portable! consolidation for traditional applications!

So no, Docker will probably live alongside, next to, holding hands with,
traditional VM environments, in much the same way that J2EE apps coexist with
Rails.

But, the other reason that VMware won't want to buy Docker is that over the
long run, these technologies become increasingly commoditized. VMware's
hypervisor was innovative when it first launched, and these days, you can
argue that you can get much the same functionality from KVM or Hyper-V - or
even in this case, LXC and Docker for a different set of use cases.

Instead, VMware needs to make money on their management tools. Ideally, those
management tools will be managing VMware's hypervisor, but they can't be
afford to be so choosy. So, instead, they want a "first among equals"
relationship with various open source technologies so they can be in the mix
in _every_ environment, even those where they haven't sold their hypervisor.

That's why they won't buy Docker - they don't want to sell the platform, they
want to manage everyone's platform.

(note: everything I said is my own opinion, not that of my employer. We are
coop-etitors with VMware in some of our business, and hence, I've got a
conflict of interest I feel obligated to disclose).

~~~
nogox
mainframe still exists with x86, but the real question is: who cares
mainframe. The similar argument when VM is introduced. People say
virtualization only fits a subnet of use case. Now what? Look for the nextt 5
yrs, you will see vmware in a really bad position.

------
otterley
VMWare "management"? Is that even possible from the command line these days?

~~~
networkguy
VMware has a strong GUI focus for the majority of Sysadmins and Virtual Admins
that use it.

That said; there is a huge command line, shell and APIs available for power
users, for people who want the next level of certification from VMware (VMware
Certified Advanced Professional) you need to know how to do common GUI tasks
via CLI and troubleshoot via CLI.

There is a surprising amount of tools under the hood, but if you want to
compare it to something Linux based I'm going to speculate that it isn't as
extensive.

~~~
tbyehl
vCLI (Windows, Linux, & Linux appliance) and PowerCLI (Windows Powershell) are
both quite extensive.

~~~
otterley
Why does every Linux admin who's worked with VMWare think the CLI tools are
terrible? Do they require a JVM or other prerequisite to operate? Are they not
natively packaged for common distributions? Do they use non-native conventions
for the platform? (e.g. using / as an option argument prefix) Are they not
simple scripts that could be ported to OS X and run from Homebrew?

If my colleagues are just misinformed, that's one thing, but I'm hearing this
feedback from people I generally trust. I'd love to have a neutral opinion on
the CLI toolset quality.

~~~
jsmeaton
I looked into the vSphere APIs recently and they were pretty bad. The samples
were written in C# and Java, with the Java samples being fairly well written.
The C# samples were terrible.

    
    
        ManagedObjectReference dcmor = cb.getServiceUtil().GetDecendentMoRef(null,"Datacenter",dcName);
    

There's a whole lot of ^ that all over the place. They expose very low level
objects.

AFAIK there are also lots of Perl examples floating around too, which may be
nicer for the traditional admin.

~~~
alsetmusic
Also pyvmomi (python), rbvmomi (ruby), vijava (might be what you were looking
at), and the perl kit (also probably what you were looking at).

I did a project in pyvmomi and I was very impressed with its flexibility.

~~~
jsmeaton
Lovely, thanks for pointing that out. I'm a python person myself, so I'll
definitely take a look at that. My sysadmins are still deploying servers the
old fashioned way - I'd like to make their lives easier. We've automated
(puppet) the configuration, but not the deployment.

------
grigio
I don't understand why Docker cares about VMvare

~~~
Spooky23
VMWare completely and utterly owns the enterprise space. Enterprises spend
many billions on IT.

