Cisco has widened its existing partnership with Docker to help advance the state of container deployments in data centres. Both the companies have also collaboratively launched open source container networking project Contiv.
As part of the expanded alliance, Cisco will be deploying Docker on certified Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) converged server systems. The Cisco Validated Design (CVD) for Docker Data Center platforms will help organisations to deploy Docker on Cisco UCS B-Series blade servers and C-Series rack servers.
Many of Cisco customers are already running containers on Cisco UCS. Most of them are using Docker for greenfield, cloud-native applications. But there a demand for legacy applications on Cisco server products that can be solved with the latest development.
The partnership will help Cisco to improve the container support. The alliance will also let the company take the advantage of Docker’s key technologies like stateless computing, fabric design and virtual networking.
“Cisco is committed to working with Docker and our ecosystem partners to deliver unique and open source solutions that provide automation, consistency and built-in security. We will implement joint engineering, sales and support to provide you and your organisation the confidence to adopt containers across your enterprise,” writes Cisco Senior Marketing Manager Ken Spear in a blog post.
Contiv 1.0 to provide networking fabric
Apart from bringing Docker to the mainstream, Cisco has developed Contiv that is being used by some of Cisco customers in a production environment. The Contiv 1.0 release is designed to provide a networking fabric for containers.
The Contiv project is certified by Docker as a networking plugin for containers. In addition to Docker 1.1 compatibility, it supports integrations with Kubernetes 1.4 and Red Hat OpenShift.
The Cisco-Docker partnership expansion is this month’s second big announcement for the container world. Docker recently started focusing on enterprises with the arrival of a separate community edition for DevOps and the new release cycle.
