Definitive Guide to Enterprise

Container Platforms

OCTOBER 2020

www.mirantis.com
CONTENTS

Digital Transformation and the Software Era .............................. 3

The Emergence of Container Platforms ............................................. 5

Enterprise Platform Requirements for the Digital Era ............. 6

Speed ................................................................................................................. 6

Choice ............................................................................................................... 6

Security ............................................................................................................ 7

Components of a Complete Container Platform ......................... 7

Build ................................................................................................................... 8

Share ................................................................................................................. 8

Run ...................................................................................................................... 9

Introducing the Docker Enterprise Platform ................................ 10

A Complete Solution ........................................................

................................... 11

How Docker Enterprise Spurs Innovation ....................................... 13

Taking the Next Steps ................................................................................... 15

 Digital Transformation and the Software Era
The new era of digital transformation is both being fueled by and is a result
of rapid advancements in a few key areas—the growth of public clouds, the
rapid adoption of microservices and DevOps and the growing influence of
open source technologies. The challenge for many organizations is being
able to keep up with these technology advancements in real-time, especially
with budgets already allocated to supporting existing applications in
operation.

Today’s mandate is clear: Organizations need to go beyond digital transfor-

mation to adopt modern application development and delivery models that
are cloud-first and cloud-ready. Modern applications enable faster response
to changing market needs, easier and more frequent release cycles, greater
resiliency and the ability to leverage cloud-based services. These benefits
lead to faster innovation, which can be applied in two areas of the business:

1. Accelerating new (greenfield) application development, and

2. Modernizing the existing portfolio of applications (brownfield) and

extending them with new capabilities

“ Our biggest area of need has been our transformation from what has
historically been an industrial manufacturing company … into a software,
a hardware and firmware design and manufacturing company.”

Brian Magnusson
VP, Innovation and Technology
Lindsay Corporation

Unfortunately, today’s applications have become very complex, creating

challenges for organizations wishing to modernize. Modern applications are
highly distributed and modular. A single application may now include
multiple cloud services, UI and backend languages, databases and even
serverless functions. At the same time, organizations are rapidly moving to a
hybrid and multi-cloud operating model to optimize costs and gain access
to these new cloud-based services.

To overcome these challenges, organizations need an end-to-end solution

that containerizes applications. But the solution must then take
modernization a step further, allowing organizations to build, share and run
modern applications quickly, effectively and securely across any
environment.

MIRANTIS / 3
BACKGROUND:
INTRODUCTION TO CONTAINERS

A container is a standard unit of software that packages up code

and all its dependencies so an application can run quickly and
reliably from one computing environment to another. Docker
popularized container technology when it launched in 2013 with
an open source Docker Engine. It leveraged existing computing
concepts from the Linux world, specifically primitives known as
cgroups and namespaces, and made it easy to use with both
Linux and Windows-based applications.

Containers revolutionized computing because it introduced a new

way to build and run applications:

• Standard: Docker created the industry standard for containers,

so they could be portable anywhere

• Lightweight: Containers share the machine’s OS kernel and

therefore do not require an OS per application, driving higher
server efficiencies and reducing server and licensing costs

• Secure: Applications are safer in containers and Docker

Enterprise provides the strongest default isolation capabilities in
the industry

Containers and virtual machines have similar resource isolation

and allocation benefits, but function differently because
containers virtualize the operating system instead of hardware.
Virtual machines (VMs) are an abstraction of physical hardware
turning one server into many servers. The hypervisor allows
multiple VMs to run on a single machine. Each VM includes a full
copy of an operating system, the application, necessary binaries
and libraries - taking up tens of GBs. VMs can also be slow to boot.

Containers are an abstraction at the app layer that packages code

and dependencies together. Multiple containers can run on the
same machine and share the OS kernel with other containers,
each running as isolated processes in user space. Containers take
up less space than VMs (container images are typically tens of
MBs in size), can handle more applications and require fewer VMs
and Operating Systems. By encapsulating and isolating
everything in a container, the container will always run the same,
regardless of the environment it is running in. Containers can
uniquely turn very diverse set of application services into
standardized software units.

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75% of global The Emergence of Container Platforms
organizations will be Over the past few years, the industry has standardized around the container as the
format to solve some of the key challenges around application portability and
running containers in developer productivity. Docker containers famously solved the “it works on my

production by 2022 machine” problem by abstracting away application dependencies and spurred the
growth of microservices-based application architectures.

“Best Practices for Running But containers on their own are just a technology. Just as in the 1950s, shipping
Containers and Kubernetes in containers introduced a new way to package and distribute goods across the entire
Production”, Gartner, February 2019 transportation system including trucks, trains, cargo ships, and ports that truly
revolutionized goods distribution. In a similar way, today’s container platforms are
built on industry-leading standards like the Docker container runtime and Kuberne-
tes orchestration. However, it is the system of tools operationalizing containers that
will transform a company. A container platform goes beyond Kubernetes and
orchestration in building a complete solution around the lifecycle of the container-
ized application, including how those applications are created, where they are
stored and how they get integrated into other IT tools and processes.

BACKGROUND:
INTRODUCTION TO KUBERNETES

Kubernetes
https://kubernetes.io/ is an open-source container orchestration engine for

automating deployment, scaling and management of

containerized applications. Originally created by engineers
at Google and now hosted by the Cloud Native Computing
Foundation https: //www.cncf.io/ Kubernetes has seen rapid growth and
(CNCF),
adoption in a few short years.

Kubernetes is primarily focused on the running of containerized

applications, including the following features:

• Service discovery and load balancing

• Service placement and bin packing
• Self-healing
• Storage orchestration
• Automated rollouts and rollbacks
• Secret and configuration management
• Horizontal scaling
• Batch execution

Mirantis packages a certified distribution of Kubernetes in Docker

Enterprise and Docker Enterprise Container Cloud, along with
additional tools that make a more complete, enterprise-ready
solution.

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Enterprise Platform Requirements for the Digital Era
As traditional businesses transform into application companies, speed, choice and
security become absolutely essential. Yet achieving those qualities is increasingly
complicated given technical debt, vendor stacks and the risks and requirements
around protecting data and systems in distributed hybrid and multi-cloud scenarios.
Container platforms enable a new wave of software-based innovation, but they need
to support the broader company’s objectives.

Speed
Today’s market dynamics and competitive environment are changing so rapidly that
companies who can respond and react quickly will be the most successful. However,
most CIOs surveyed think they are falling behind in their digital transformation
efforts. Things that slow an organization down include unnecessary barriers to
developer productivity, friction between developers and operators and steep
learning curves for new technologies. The container platform must be designed for
high-velocity innovation across the entire software development lifecycle and should
be intuitive for both developers and operators. Platforms should extend to develop-
ers’ systems to enable “shift left” testing and security.

Be wary of:

• Platforms that force adoption of specific software development patterns or require

learning specific coding techniques
• Platforms that require additional tooling for each new type of technology or
application
• Platforms that focus more on deploying Kubernetes than the software develop
ment process

Choice
New technology stacks and frameworks are being introduced every day. The
container platform must work with both existing technology investments and next
generation technologies alike. It should be independent of both the underlying
infrastructure as well as the applications and frameworks, providing a consistent and
uniform operating model for different application types intended for different
operating environments to prevent lock-in.

Be wary of:

• Platforms specializing in limited types of application frameworks or technology

stacks
• Platforms that support only one infrastructure, operating system or virtualization
solution
• Platforms that cannot address the full spectrum of existing and new applications

MIRANTIS / 6
 Security

The new digital economy has also introduced a new wave of cybercrime.
Security has become more complex and high-stakes and organizations are
faced with the challenge of empowering developers to be productive while
protecting themselves against risk. The new application architectures are
highly dynamic and scalable, outgrowing traditional security models so the
container platform needs to be built from the ground up with security in
mind.

Be wary of:

• Platforms that require 3rd party security tools due to lack of built-in
capabilities
• Platforms that cannot support required application security models, such
as Active Directory authentication for Windows applications

Components of a Complete Container Platform

A container platform should provide a complete solution for the building,
sharing and running of containerized applications. Oftentimes, focus is
placed strictly on the running of containerized applications, however the
impact of containers on an organization is the transformational change it
brings to the entire software development process. A container platform
should address the needs of both developers and operators who often work
in different paradigms. Container platforms should also improve the handoff
between these groups.

From concept to fruition, a containerized application passes through multiple

lifecycle stages. Each of these stages introduce new requirements for the
container platform:

BUILD SHARE RUN

• Developers work on code • Teams collaborate • DevOps teams deploy apps

• Compile, assemble and build apps • Source content from others • Manage, monitor and patch

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 Build

Containerized applications usually start with the developers who are building
applications in a local environment—typically a desktop or laptop. The container
platform needs to provide developers a simple and secure way to rapidly build
containerized applications and microservices. It should easily integrate with existing
software development tools (e.g. Lens Kubernetes IDE, Visual Studio, Eclipse, IntelliJ),
and it should work across different languages and frameworks (e.g. .NET, Java,
Node.JS)—so developers can select whatever makes the most sense for a particular
project. Developers also need a quick and simple way to build in compliance with
corporate and architecture standards — without impacting developer productivity.

CRITICAL COMPONENTS:
Speed

• Central point of collaboration simplifies and streamlines processes across dev and ops
• Option to have Mirantis remotely manage complete operations of the full
Kubernetes stack

Choice

• Works with any application, framework or language

• Run applications in any data center or cloud, on any architecture and any OS
• Is configurable to existing CI processes and tools

Security

• Complies with corporate and architecture standards without impacting developer

productivity
• Features secure orchestration with a fully-conformant Kubernetes
• Standardizes deployment and configuration of developer environments using
existing endpoint management solution

Share

Today’s digital economy requires the ability to innovate rapidly on top of previous
innovation and close collaboration among teams. In mid-sized to large organizations,
this increasingly involves DevOps teams who embrace Continuous Integration and
Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) principles for agile delivery. A container platform should
include tools that make it both simple and secure to collaborate on applications
while assisting in the rapid delivery of applications through the software pipeline.

CRITICAL COMPONENTS:
Speed

• Features an automated policy engine to support the full lifecycle of containers,

push images and mirror containerized content to distributed teams
• Replicates approved images across multiple clusters, putting the latest content
right where it’s needed

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Choice

• Features Webhooks and API interfaces for integrating with CI/CD processes and tools
• Configures to run in any hybrid-cloud environment

Security

• Facilitates an automated container image supply chain for improved security,

governance and faster delivery
• Performs binary-level scanning of images for known vulnerabilities
• Integrates role-based access control (RBAC) with internal user directories to
implement fine-grained access policies

Run

The container platform should make it easy to deploy, manage, update and secure
containerized applications with globally consistent environments. It should allow
developers to run applications on any data center or cloud and any architecture or
OS without requiring deep expertise. These environments—which may be
distributed and/or hybrid— need to be secure while being easy to operate, which
starts at the foundation with a secure container runtime, a 100% portable security
model and a standard set of APIs and tools. Finally, the platform needs to offer a
highly scalable operator experience that integrates well with storage, networking,
logging and monitoring tools and provides a management plane for ongoing
operations.

CRITICAL COMPONENTS:
Speed

• Features an intuitive design and guided workflows for unified management of

applications and fast troubleshooting
• Simplifies lifecycle management (Day 1 and Day 2) with automated tools for
installation, upgrades, backup, restore and scaling up and down

Choice

• Supports any OS and deployment infrastructure— public or private cloud or bare metal
• Configures to CD processes and tools

Security

• Deploys Kubernetes environments automatically with out-of-the-box secure defaults

• Signs images digitally from the source and prevents unvalidated content from
being deployed to production
• Delivers secure multi-tenancy through advanced access controls that integrate
with enterprise authentication and authorization tools

There are different container platform options available in the market, and
organizations have the ability to build their own container platform piece by piece.
Organizations will need to assess their requirements to determine which platform
fits their needs.

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Introducing the Docker Enterprise Platform
Over the last six years, containers have become the fundamental unit of software for
building applications and providing standardized units for development, shipment
and deployment. But modern applications have become much more complex than a
few individual containers. As stated in the introduction, today’s applications are
highly distributed and modular and must be designed to securely, efficiently and
cost-effectively run across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Docker Enterprise is
focused on making these diverse and distributed modern applications easy to deliver
and manage.

The Docker Enterprise platform is a standards-based container platform for rapid

development and progressive delivery of modern applications. Only Docker
Enterprise delivers a consistent and secure application pipeline to Kubernetes
environments in any cloud, choice of tools and languages and central point of
collaboration that simplifies and streamlines processes across dev and ops.

Speed – Docker Enterprise enables organizations to rapidly deliver engaging new

customer experiences and transform existing processes. It does this by enabling
developers to accelerate time-to-productivity and production with faster developer
on-boarding and streamlined workflows. Operators are then able to bring
applications to market faster by modernizing the way they’re built, managed and
secured.

Choice – With Docker Enterprise, organizations have optimal agility and flexibility to
meet their business needs. They can easily adapt to the next technologies on their
own timeline while leveraging existing knowledge and processes. Developers have
the freedom to select the best tools, languages, application stacks and deployment
environments for each project. Operators have the freedom to pursue the right
operational strategy for the business—across any app, OS and infrastructure.

Security – Docker Enterprise enables organizations to continuously ensure

compliance and mitigate risk without slowing down innovation. It is the only
platform that can provide trusted and certified end-to-edge security with automated
governance and compliance throughout the application lifecycle with a
multi-layered security approach that is delivered by design and by default. It offers
scalable security solutions built on a policy-based governance model that supports
secure multi-tenancy and integrates with the software development process to
operate at the speed of DevOps.

Docker Enterprise Container Cloud takes Docker Enterprise to a new level by adding
multi-cloud cluster management capabilities, with one cohesive cloud experience
across public and private clouds, full workload and DevOps portability, a single pane
of glass, and automated full stack lifecycle management. It provides choice at every
level of the stack, from the virtualization layer to the OS to orchestration.

MIRANTIS / 10
 A Complete Solution
Docker Enterprise makes it possible to build, share and run modern,
containerized applications as simple, repeatable processes for application teams
and perfectly orchestrated, always-on experiences for customers.

Docker Enterprise Platform

Securely build, share and run any application, anywhere

BUILD SHARE RUN

Rapidly build containerized Securely share and access Deploy, manage and secure
applications approved content modern applications anywhere

Central point of collaboration Docker Trusted Registry Docker Kubernetes and

Docker Swarm
Integrates with Lens
Kubernetes IDE Universal Control Plane

Simple, as-a-service experience Lifecycle Management of the full

Kubernetes stack

MIRANTIS / 11
It features the following key end-to-end capabilities to help build, share and run
modern applications:

Build: Simple, as-a-service experience and streamlined workflows that deliver faster
time-to-production for modern applications:

• Central point of collaboration simplifies and streamlines processes across dev and ops
• Integrates with Lens, the world’s most popular Kubernetes IDE
• Option to have Mirantis remotely manage complete operations of the full
Kubernetes stack

Share: Securely share approved content leveraging Docker Trusted Registry (DTR):

• Docker Trusted Registry (DTR): Manage and operate a globally consistent private
content repository for distributed development teams with the most advanced
private registry for container images.

Run: Deploy, manage and secure modern applications with Docker Kubernetes
Service, a consistent Kubernetes environment that runs on any cloud:

• Rapidly deploy Kubernetes clusters anywhere with secure defaults out-of-the-box

and without being an expert.
• Use consistent and commercially supported Kubernetes
• Access the Control Plane to centrally manage and operate containerized applications

In addition, Docker Enterprise delivers:

• Extensibility that connects the container platform easily into other enterprise tools,
including preferred storage and networking solutions, logging and monitoring tools.
• Enterprise support and managed services with advisory capabilities to help resolve
potentially complex process, orchestration, integration and workflow challenges.
• Certification to assure interoperability with the ecosystem and other data center
platforms.

With Docker Enterprise Container Cloud, multi-cluster management capabilities are

also provided, including:

• One cohesive cloud experience across public and private clouds to lower the barrier
to entry for dev and ops
• A single pane of glass for complete situational awareness across a fleet of
Kubernetes clusters
• Self-service access to Kubernetes clusters with single-click deployment
• Complete application and DevOps portability
• Automated full stack lifecycle management, with automated zero-downtime
updates that developers can approve as they become available

MIRANTIS / 12
 How the Docker Enterprise Spurs Innovation
Docker Enterprise has a unique approach that provides a broader view of digital
transformation. It is one that focuses not just on the new microservices and
cloud-native applications; it also looks at an organization’s existing application
portfolio and how to bring it forward into the digital era:

• Modernize brownfield applications - For applications that are being actively

maintained, containerizing is the first step to further application modernization.
Once containerized, organizations often begin the work of segmenting off specific
capabilities and building new microservices to replace old monolithic architectures
or replacing key building blocks and moving them to cloud-based services
(e.g. moving to DBaaS).

• Accelerate greenfield applications – Next, organizations need to build new and

compelling experiences for their customers and flexible, responsive systems for
their businesses. New greenfield applications can come in many different flavors
and architectures. Our methodology puts the emphasis in the innovation process,
so developers can make the technology and architecture choices that best fit the
needs of the application. With our focus on choice and flexibility, organizations have
the freedom to use existing stacks or explore new ones.

Finally, our approach is to prepare organizations for whatever is next—whether that

is new business models, new opportunities or responding to new competitive
threats.

“ What we sought out to do (with Docker Enterprise) is create a multi-lane

highway that could accelerate application delivery into the cloud in a way
that gave us better portability, better speed, and better agility for our
development teams... a model where we could containerize our traditional
legacy applications and get them to the cloud, modernize some of them
into microservices, and fuel innovation around net-new microservices.”

Eric Drobisewski
Senior Architect
Liberty Mutual

MIRANTIS / 13
Docker Enterprise has tangible benefits that immediately deliver a high
Return-on-investment:

• Unified operations. When everything is standardized and follows the same

operational patterns, it’s easier for IT teams to explore new technology areas—and
for the company to adapt and embrace new services. With Docker Enterprise,
Franklin American
https://www.mirantis.com/bl og/disruption-from-withinruns
-driving-innovatiaon-at-frankl
single cluster
in-american-wi th-docker-ee/ that supports the development, test and
production environments.

• Leverage existing teams and processes. This goes back to standardization. With a
common platform, processes become repeatable. It’s easier and faster to
experiment or just make iterative changes. Cornell https:/ www.mirantis.com/cUniversity
loud-case-studies/cornell-university/ accelerated
application deployment times by 14x; htKadaster,
tps:/ www.mirantis.com/cloud-case-studies/kadaster/ the Dutch land registry, went from
one new deployment a month to as many as 500.

• Respond to risks and threats. The agility and standardization offered by a container
platform makes it easier to apply consistent security to protect the organization from
threats. Bosch
htps:/w w.slideshare.n t/Docker/dceu-18design g-aglobal-centralized-container-platform-for-amulticuster- nterpise- nvironment uses Docker Enterprise to reduce security and compliance risks by

accessing app content on the internet. The company can now securely serve 62,000
global developers with highly available, complaint infrastructure and over 1,000
secure image repos.

• Increase data center utilization by 3x. Even with virtualization, most data centers
operate at—at best—20 percent utilization. Containerization increases utilization 50
or 60 percent by eliminating redundant operating systems and further consolidating
systems.

• Decrease IT operating costs. Lifecycle management and infrastructure

standardization make system patching, application updates and even rollbacks
https:/ www.mirantis.com/cloud-case-Bank
much faster. Docker Enterprise is helping Citizens studies/citizens-bank/ accelerate software
development and reduce server costs by 40 percent and storage costs by 90
percent.

• Fund innovation. As a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwt3xigvlj0&feature=youtu.be

Fortune 100 insurance company put it, companies can
“self-fund innovation” since the savings from the Docker Enterprise can be
reinvested into innovation.

MIRANTIS / 14
Taking the Next Steps
What organizations should do next depends on where they are now, and what
they want to achieve.

For organizations that have not started on the containerization journey:

• Onboard developers to modern application development models.

• Identify a first project. Show early success by bringing a set of containerized
applications to production—either brownfield or greenfield—and begin planning
an innovation team.

For organizations that have begun using containers and/or container orchestrators:

• Focus on ways to accelerate developer productivity with a secure software supply

chain that is integrated with existing software pipeline tools.
• Invest in training and certification to make sure teams know how to get the most
out of a container platform.
• Expand from initial pilot projects to production at scale by extending modern
application practices to a broader set of applications.

Learn more about Docker Enterprise: www.mirantis.com/docker

Learn more about Docker Enterprise Container Cloud:
www.mirantis.com/container-cloud
Contact sales for more information: www.mirantis.com/contact

MIRANTIS / 15
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