Red Hat, Ubuntu, Suse, and CoreOS are following different paths for adopting Docker and its virtualization technology
When containers first appeared in Linux, the natural assumption was that
it would be yet another of many technologies that Linux has
assimilated.
But then came Docker, a novel use of containers to make apps portable
and self-contained. It's set Linux vendors scrambling, both to to
rethink the way containers are implemented in Linux and to see how Linux
can be reworked around Docker's application-centric model.
Here's how four major enterprise Linux distributions are readying themselves for a Docker-ized future.
Red Hat
Not long after Docker started blowing up, Red Hat began rolling Docker support into Red Hat Enterprise Linux and certifying containerized apps
for use on the OS. Since then, Red Hat has drastically ramped up
ambitions for RHEL; the company wants nothing less than for RHEL to
become a full-blown container host system.
The hard part is doing so without upsetting the existing installed base of RHEL. Thus, Red Hat has elected to create RHEL 7 Atomic Host, which works both as a container host and as a conventional RHEL distribution. But with Fedora 21,
Red Hat is delving into more experimental territory to see how, or if,
future versions of Red Hat can be made over entirely as a
container-based system.
CoreOS
Look no further than CoreOS
for an example of how radically Linux can be reworked around
containers. Rather than take an existing version of Linux and build
Docker management features into it, CoreOS took the opposite approach
and rebuilt Linux from the inside out as a lightweight system for
running almost nothing but containers. If you all you need is your
applications, why not concentrate on that?
CoreOS was also built with an eye toward how an OS could make it easier
to manage both fleets of systems and herds of applications, with rolling
reboots for the former and cluster self-configuration for the latter
all built directly into the OS. Small wonder this radical redesign has
given other Linux vendors a lot to think about.
Ubuntu
Canonical's Linux distribution has recently been viewed as empowering OpenStack, with some of the work recycled into Ubuntu's support for Docker. Rather than create new Docker-specific tools, the latest version of Ubuntu
leverages existing Canonical projects like the Juju orchestration
system -- which Canonical also uses for OpenStack -- to manage Docker
workloads.
Canonical has also vowed to keep Docker up to date in Ubuntu, which
ought to be easier under Ubuntu's twice-a-year release cycle. What's
worth watching for is how, or if, Ubuntu will use Docker and containers
to push the distribution toward being an infrastructure building block.
Suse
Of all the enterprise distributions, Suse ranks as the most conservative in its use of Docker, only recently adding support
for it in the form of a technical preview. It's unlikely that Suse
wants to be left behind; rather, the company values stability and
predictability highly, as reflected in its 10-year support lifetime for
Linux editions. To that end, don't expect Suse to perform a radical
Docker-powered makeover. Instead, Suse will probably refresh Docker
regularly as part of its Modules line of third-party software that needs
to be kept current in Suse.
Source: http://www.infoworld.com
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