DEVOPSdigest

IBM is expanding its relationship with Docker. Together, IBM and Docker will be making it easier for clients to modernize their existing applications with Docker Enterprise Edition, combined with IBM Cloud, software and services.

The growth of the partnership is focused on three points:

- Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) for IBM Cloud, which will allow customers to easily bring up a Docker environment to containerize their existing workloads and run them on IBM Cloud.

- IBM's participation in Docker's Modernize Traditional Applications (MTA) program, to help customers improve efficiency and agility by modernizing existing portfolios.

- Certified IBM software will be available in the Docker Store, simplifying the containerization of existing software which uses IBM middleware.

For the past several years, IBM has collaborated with Docker to help customers realize the benefits of containers. Since then, IBM has expanded work together to deliver the value of Docker and its container platform to customers in new, secure and powerful ways, whether they are running in the cloud or on IBM Systems, or a mixture of both.

As more companies look to migrate critical infrastructure and workloads to the cloud, they need to do so in a way that is efficient, secure, and cost effective. You may have already found that containers are the perfect solution, especially when moving from one computing environment, such as a physical machine in a data center, to a public cloud.

These new aspects of the partnership enable customers use Docker containers to more quickly move their existing applications to the cloud. Then, they can easily extend them using IBM Cloud services to help them innovate faster, build more intelligent solutions and compete.

Docker EE for IBM Cloud: IBM and Docker are now working side by side to deliver an edition of Docker EE, which is great for enterprises looking to shift their workloads to containers on the IBM public cloud. Once these existing workloads are transitioned to the IBM Cloud via Docker containers, enterprise teams will be able to rapidly connect and integrate them with the services that make the IBM public cloud so attractive to many. That means companies can take their monolithic applications and make them smarter with Watson, without having to change the original application.

IBM is also joining Docker's Modernize Traditional Applications (MTA) Program. With IT operations teams in mind, the Docker MTA program partners with companies to design and embark on cloud and containers transformation projects, which fits well with IBM's priority to help more customers modernize their legacy systems with cloud.

IBM software is also available in the Docker store, including WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, and IBM DB2 database. This will enable customers to quickly access the software images needed for containerization, and gain confidence in those images through the promises of container certification.