HPE Docker ready Server Pushes Computing Into the Future
March 31, 2017 • Blog Post
IN THIS ARTICLE
Why one of the leading companies in servers joined with the leader in containers
By Bob Moore, Partner Software HPE Servers
In June, HPE announced its strategic alliance with Docker, Inc., the premier provider of container management tools, as a way to help customers transform and modernize their datacenters and to create a more agile development environment.
Our customers have been asking for more choice in the way they manage and deliver applications, whether it be through hypervisors, containers or both. Our goal is to help our customers move to modern application architectures that best suit their needs.
This partnership with Docker gives customers the option to adopt containers as a more efficient and portable way to build, ship and deploy distributed applications. Unlike virtual machines, multiple containers can share a single operating system, making them lightweight and highly portable so they can be moved to any location across any infrastructure.
Through lots of customer engagements, we know there is a critical need for speed to market and simplification, partnering with Docker enables our customers to achieve the business results they are looking for. Its why HPE is now delivering ProLiant Servers with Docker CS Engines pre-configured by default with the industrys first HPE Docker ready Server.
Its not surprising that Docker chose HPE for this strategic alliance. HPE, with its ProLiant Servers, is the industry leading compute platform making it a natural fit to build the foundation for the first ever Docker ready Server. Im often asked, what exactly is an HPE Docker ready Server? First, our DL360, DL380, and BL460 now have Docker CS Engines as a standard in our configuration tools. Second, customers like the convenience of a one-stop-shop purchasing servers, software, support, and Docker CS Engines from a single provider. Finally, the partnership between Docker and HPE assures customers that they are getting world class delivery, service, warranty, and official support for their Docker environments.
We want our customers to have the best innovative IT solutions, thats why our relationship with Docker and the broader partner community that our customers rely and trust is so important to us. Our channel partners can take advantage of the HPE Docker ready Server program for their own purposes. It gives our partners an advantage when they are reaching out to their customers because it allows them to leverage an innovation that no one else can provide. Partners realize that customers will adopt HPE Docker ready Servers because it provides a unique opportunity to create a portable instance of applications with the backing of the worlds largest server provider. It provides our partners an opportunity to drive more business because weve differentiated our HPE platforms with a new style of IT innovation and a new style of partnering with organizations like Docker.
Lets look at an example of how the container paradigm changes the game. In a traditional IT environment, developers write a program for the business and install that application into an operating system in the data center. This application is usually developed directly to the OS chosen and the particular host it is installed into. As most IT professionals know, migrating this application to a different data center or to the cloud can be very challenging because very often the application assumes specific details about the host it was initially run on. With a containerized application, however, the developers produce software that is compartmentalized and packaged into something that can be easily moved or instantiated onto a different host with little fuss. The application isnt even aware it has moved in most cases.
Along with the portability and the functionality of the HPE Docker ready Server, customers are able to take full advantage of the underlying infrastructure. Users are currently limited by the shared virtualization layer in the standard server format. The container system, on the other hand, eliminates the need to segment the server into multiple virtual servers and allows the customer the benefits of the full performance of the infrastructure.
These three entities portability, functionality, and improved infrastructure efficiency is what customers want in their servers and from their computing environments. Innovations like the HPE Docker ready Server are pushing computing into the future.
HPE and Docker came together because we saw a natural partnership, joining together one of the most respected names in servers with the leader in containers. Other partners are turning to HPE with new ideas not only because of the companys leading market share but because in a world where security is swiftly becoming a top priority, HPE is providing a secure product.
Were ahead of the market none of our competitors have a container-ready server and we have some exclusivity in the marketplace as the premier companies in containers and servers have partnered together to provide the HPE Docker ready Server program to our customers.