Docker milestones & performance improvements

Docker Desktop updates

We’ve been hard at work enhancing Docker Desktop this year. Among the notable highlights:

• Docker Desktop 4.26: Rosetta, PHP Init, Builds View GA, Admin Enhancements, and Docker Desktop Image for Microsoft Dev Box 
• Docker Desktop 4.25: Enhancements to Docker Desktop on Windows, Rosetta for Linux GA, and New Docker Scout Image Analysis Settings
• Docker Desktop 4.24: Compose Watch, Resource Saver, and Docker Engine
• Docker Desktop 4.23: Updates to Docker Init, New Configuration Integrity Check, Quick Search Improvements, Performance Enhancements, and More
• Docker Desktop 4.22: Resource Saver, Compose ‘include’, and Enhanced RBAC Functionality
• Docker Desktop 4.21: Support for New Wasm Runtimes, Docker Init Support for Rust, Docker Scout Dashboard Enhancements, Builds View (Beta), and More
• Docker Desktop 4.20: Docker Engine and CLI Updated to Moby 24.0
• Docker Desktop 4.19: Compose v2, New Language Support, Moby Project Update
• Docker Desktop 4.18: Docker Scout Updates, Container File Explorer GA
• Docker Desktop 4.17: New Functionality for a Better Development Experience
• Docker Desktop 4.16: Better Performance and Docker Extensions GA

Performance milestones

Read “Docker’s Journey Toward Enabling Lightning-Fast Developer Innovation: Unveiling Performance Milestones” to learn about:

• 75% startup time speed improvements
• 85x improvement in upload speed
• 650% improvement in image download speeds
• 71% reduction in build time
• Resource saver mode saves 38,500 CPU hours daily. 

Download the latest Docker Desktop release to take advantage of the performance improvements.

Simplifying software supply chain management

We’ve simplified software supply chain management for developers with Docker Scout. Docker Scout policies enable teams to identify, prioritize, and fix their software quality issues at the point of creation to meet their organization’s reliability and security standards while accelerating the speed of execution and innovation. 

Learn how to achieve security and compliance goals with policy guardrails in Docker Scout. Visit the Docker Scout product page to learn more.

20 new Docker extensions

Twenty new Docker extensions were added to the Docker extension marketplace in 2023. We highlighted a few extensions on the Docker blog, including Kubescape, NebulaGraph, Gefyra, LocalStack, and Grafana. Explore Docker Hub to discover more extensions, and use the Docker Extensions SDK to create and share your own.

New Docker features 

We also announced:

• Docker Build Early Access Program: Docker Build speeds up builds by as much as 39 times by automatically taking advantage of large, on-demand cloud-based servers and team-wide build caching. 
• Resource Saver GA release: With Resource Saver, Docker Desktop uses minimal system resources when it’s idle, letting you save battery life on your laptop and improve your multitasking experience. 
• Docker Compose Watch GA release: Watch, available in Compose 2.22 and later, lets you automatically update and preview your running Compose services as you edit and save your code. 
• Docker Init Beta release: docker init, a new command-line interface (CLI) command introduced as a beta feature, simplifies the process of adding Docker to a project.  
• Docker+Wasm Technical Preview 2: The new Technical Preview of Docker+Wasm offers three new runtimes: spin from Fermyon, slight from Deislabs, and wasmtime from Bytecode Alliance.
• Builds view GA release: The new Builds view in Docker Desktop provides detailed insight into your build performance and usage. Get a live view of your builds as they run, explore previous build performance, and dive deep into an error and cache issue.
• Signing Docker Official Images Using OpenPubkey: We announced our intention to use OpenPubkey, a project jointly developed by BastionZero and Docker and recently open-sourced and donated to the Linux Foundation, as part of our signing solution for Docker Official Images (DOI).

All things AI/ML

2023 will be known as the year of AI/ML. For 2024, our investments in AI promise to bring new services and functionality to Docker customers. Recent announcements include:

• GenAI Stack: At DockerCon, with partners Neo4j, LangChain, and Ollama, we announced a new GenAI Stack. We have brought together the top technologies in the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) space to build a solution that allows developers to deploy a full GenAI stack with only a few clicks. 
• Docker AI: Docker’s first AI-powered product promises to boost developer productivity by tapping into the universe of Docker developer wisdom to provide context-specific, automated guidance to developers as they work. Sign up for early access now.
• Docker & Hugging Face partnership: We announced a new partnership with Hugging Face to democratize AI and make it accessible to all software engineers. To dive in, read our blog post, “Effortlessly Build Machine Learning Apps with Hugging Face’s Docker Spaces.”
• Announcing the Docker AI/ML Hackathon 2023 Winners: The 2023 Docker AI/ML Hackathon encouraged participants to build solutions that were innovative, applicable in real life, use Docker technology, and have an impact on developer productivity. Read the announcement blog post to learn about the winning AI/ML projects.

Also check out our blog post “Why Are There More Than 100 Million Pull Requests for AI/ML Images on Docker Hub?” to learn how Docker is providing a powerful tool for AI/ML development.

Expanding developer experiences

AtomicJar joins Docker

In December, we were excited to welcome AtomicJar, the makers of Testcontainers, to the Docker family. “Docker already accelerates the ‘inner loop’ app development steps — build, verify (through Docker Scout), run, debug, and share — and now, with AtomicJar and Testcontainers, we’re adding ‘test,’” explains Docker CEO Scott Johnston. As a result, developers using Docker will be able to deliver quality applications faster and with less effort. Read our announcement blog post and FAQ to learn more about AtomicJar and Testcontainers.

Mutagen joins Docker

In June, we announced the acquisition of Mutagen, the company behind the open source Mutagen file synchronization and networking technologies that enable high-performance remote development. The Mutagen File Sync feature of Docker Desktop takes file sharing to new heights with up to a 16.5x improvement in performance. To try it and help influence Docker’s future, sign up for the Docker Desktop Preview Program.

Microsoft Dev Box and Docker Desktop

We announced our partnership with the Microsoft Dev Box team to bring additional benefits to developer onboarding, environment set-up, security, and administration with Docker Desktop. You can navigate to the Azure Marketplace to download the Docker Desktop-Dev Box compatible image and start developing in the cloud with a native experience. Additionally, this image can be activated with your current subscription, or you can buy a Docker Business subscription directly on Azure Marketplace.

Docker and Snowflake collaboration

At Snowflake BUILD, we announced Docker Desktop with Snowpark Container Services (private preview). Watch the session to learn more about accelerating deployments of data workloads with Docker and Snowpark. 

Docker in action

Customer highlights from 2023 include:

• How Tabcorp Accelerated Delivery Velocity with Docker
• How Docker Transforms Software Delivery and Empowers Developers at The Warehouse Group
• How IKEA Retail Standardizes Docker Images for Efficient Machine Learning Model Deployment
• How JW Player Secured 300 Repos in an Hour with Docker Scout
• How Kinsta Improved the End-to-End Development Experience by Dockerizing Every Step of the Production Cycle

What’s next

In October at DockerCon, Docker and Udemy announced a partnership to offer developers accessible learning paths to further their Docker education. Read the announcement blog post to learn more about what we’ve planned.

Want to dive deeper into Docker? DockerCon videos are available now on YouTube. 

Do your New Year goals include expanding your Docker expertise? Watch the on-demand webinar Docker Fundamentals: Get the Most Out of Docker.

Check out our public roadmap to help steer the future of Docker.

Thank you to our community of developers, Docker Captains and Community Leaders, customers, and partners! We look forward to our continued work building our future together in the New Year. 

Learn more

• Watch A Look Back at Docker in 2023 on-demand. 
• Check out past and upcoming Docker events.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Read highlights from DockerCon 2023.
• Watch DockerCon 2023 sessions.
• Try Docker Scout.
• Explore Docker Extensions.
• Get started with Testcontainers.
• Watch the on-demand webinar Docker Fundamentals: Get the Most Out of Docker.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.
• See the Docker public roadmap.

The Docker AI/ML Hackathon encouraged participants to build solutions that were innovative, applicable in real life, use Docker technology, and have an impact on developer productivity. We made a lot of announcements at DockerCon, including the new GenAI Stack, and we couldn’t wait to see how developers would put this to work in their projects.  

Participants competed for US$ 20,000 in cash prizes and exclusive Docker swag. Judging was based on criteria such as applicability, innovativeness, incorporation of Docker tooling, and impact on the developer experience and productivity. Read on to learn who took home the top prizes.

The winners

1st place

Signal0ne — This project automates insights from failed containers and anomalous resource usage through anomaly detection algorithms and a Docker desktop extension. Developed using Python and Angular, the Signal0ne tool provides rapid, accurate log analysis, even enabling self-debugging. The project’s key achievements include quick issue resolution for experienced engineers and enhanced debugging capabilities for less experienced ones.

2nd place

SeamlessML: Docker-Powered Serverless Model Orchestration — SeamlessML addresses the AI model deployment bottleneck by providing a simplified, scalable, and cost-effective solution. Leveraging Docker and serverless technologies, it enables easy deployment of machine learning models as scalable API endpoints, abstracting away complexities like server management and load balancing. The team successfully reduced deployment time from hours to minutes and created a local testing setup for confident cloud-like deployments.

3rd place

Dionysus — Dionysus is a developer collaboration platform that streamlines teamwork through automatic code documentation, efficient codebase search, and AI-powered meeting transcription. Built with a microservice architecture using NextJS for the frontend and a Python backend API, Docker containerization, and integration with GitHub, Dionysus simplifies development workflows. The team overcame challenges in integrating AI effectively, ensuring real-time updates and creating a user-friendly interface, resulting in a tool that automates code documentation, facilitates contextual code search, and provides real-time AI-driven meeting transcription.

Honorable mentions

The following winners took home swag prizes. We received so many fantastic submissions that we awarded honorable mentions to four more teams than originally planned!

• Chiral AI — Chat with PRDs and Create Tickets in Record Time
• Code Explorer
• Containerized Online Bandit Experimentation (COBE) Platform
• Dataficial
• DockerImageAnalyzer
• DockerPulse
• Docker Genius
• Docker Log Sentiment Analyzer
• Docker ML Studio
• Gait Analyzer
• GitChats AI
• Local LLM Messenger (lollmm)
• P8Hub — Private AI Hub
• ReadmeAI
• SolPredict
• Techdocs

What’s next?

Check out all project submissions on the Docker AI/ML Hackathon gallery page. Also, check out and contribute to the GenAI Stack project on GitHub and sign up to join the Docker AI Early Access program. We can’t wait to see what projects you create.

We had so much fun seeing the creativity that came from this hackathon. Stay tuned until the next one!

Learn more

• Docker AI/ML Hackathon gallery page
• Docker 2023 AI/ML Hackathon on YouTube
• GenAI Stack project on GitHub
• Docker AI Early Access
• DockerCon announcements

In this post, we round up highlights from DockerCon 2023. Event videos are available on-demand now on the DockerCon site and will be added to YouTube in the coming weeks.

Docker CEO Scott Johnston kicked off DockerCon 2023, celebrating 10 years of Docker. 

“In the last 10 years, we’ve grown to more than 15 million developers, across the globe, and you all collectively — just on Docker Hub alone — have created and shared more than 15 million repos across open source, commercial, and many other communities,” he said. “Now, with your code, with your apps, with your Dockerfiles, your Docker Compose files, tweets, blog posts, YouTube videos, and introducing your colleagues to Docker, you have made it clear that Docker is the way to build, share, and run any application, anywhere.” 

The first-day keynote included product announcements to accelerate the delivery of secure apps. 

“With these products, Docker is clearly making ‘shift-left’ the new standard in developer experience,” writes Zevi Reinitz for Livecycle. “Each of these new tools aims to achieve a singular goal for developers everywhere: combine the responsiveness and convenience of local development with the on-demand resources, connectedness, and collaboration possibilities of the cloud. This combination enables developers to do their best work much earlier in the SDLC than they ever imagined possible.”

The second-day keynote, hosted by Docker CTO Justin Cormack, focused on innovations in artificial intelligence (AI). 

“The critical importance of Docker to the modern development ecosystem cannot be overstated, and the new AI efforts could have a big impact on GenAI development efforts,” writes Sean Michael Kerner in VentureBeat.

Here’s a roundup of the news and announcement buzz at DockerCon:

Docker Desktop 4.24: Improving the developer experience

Prior to the event kickoff, Docker announced the release of Docker Desktop 4.24. This release brings the Docker Compose Watch GA release, a tool to improve the inner loop of application development. Docker Compose Watch enables devs to instantly see the impact of their code changes without manually triggering image builds. Read the Docker Compose Watch GA announcement to learn more. 

Docker Desktop 4.24 also includes the GA release of the Resource Saver performance enhancement feature. This new feature automatically detects when Docker Desktop is not running containers and reduces its memory footprint by 10x, freeing up valuable resources on developers’ machines for other tasks and minimizing the risk of lag when navigating across different applications. 

And with this latest Docker Desktop release, developers can view and manage Docker Engine state directly from the Docker Dashboard, minimizing clicks. Learn more in the Docker Desktop 4.24 announcement.

New local + cloud products

In the first-day keynote, we announced the Docker Scout GA release, next-generation Docker Build, and Docker Debug. The new products bring the power of the cloud to a development team’s “inner-loop” code-build-test-debug process.

The Docker Scout GA release enables developers to evaluate container images against a set of out-of-the-box policies. Scout’s new capabilities strengthen its position as integral to the software supply chain. Read the Docker Scout announcement to learn more. 

Development teams can waste as much as an hour per day per team member waiting for their image builds to finish. To address this, next-generation Docker Build speeds up builds by as much as 39 times by automatically taking advantage of large, on-demand cloud-based servers and team-wide build caching.

Developers can spend as much as 60% of their time debugging their applications. But much of that time is taken by sorting and configuring tools and set-up instead of debugging. Docker Debug provides a language-independent, integrated toolbox for debugging local and remote containerized apps — even when the container fails to launch — enabling developers to find and solve problems faster.

The Mutagen File Sync feature of Docker Desktop takes file sharing to new heights with up to a 16.5x improvement in performance. To give it a try and help influence the future of Docker, sign up for the Docker Desktop Preview Program.

Udemy + Docker

Docker and Udemy announced a partnership to offer developers accessible learning paths to further their Docker education. Read the announcement blog post to learn more.

AI/ML announcements

Docker AI

Docker AI, Docker’s first AI-powered product, boosts dev productivity by generating guidance for developers that follows best practices and aids selecting up-to-date, secure images for their applications. Read the press release and “Docker dives into AI to help developers build GenAI apps” on VentureBeat to learn more.

Docker AI is available to sign up for early access now.

New GenAI stack

Docker and partners Neo4j, LangChain, and Ollama launched a new GenAI Stack designed to enable developers to deploy a full GenAI stack in a few clicks. Read the blog post and press release to learn how the GenAI Stack simplifies AI/ML integration. 

The GenAI Stack is available in early access now and is accessible from the Docker Desktop Learning Center or on GitHub. 

OpenPubkey

During DockerCon, we announced our intention to use OpenPubkey, a project jointly developed by BastionZero and Docker and recently open-sourced and donated to The Linux Foundation. Read our blog post to learn about signing Docker Official Images using OpenPubkey.

Hackathon kicks off

A Docker AI/ML Hackathon kicked off the week of DockerCon. The Docker AI/ML Hackathon is open from October 3 – November 7, 2023. Winning projects receive prizes, including Docker swag and up to US$10,000.

Register for the Docker AI/ML Hackathon to participate and to be notified of event activities.

Videos now online

Thank you to the DockerCon attendees, speakers, and sponsors for making the 2023 hybrid event  a huge success! And thank you to Docker partners, customers, Docker Captains, and our community for helping make this year happen. 

Visit DockerCon.com for on-demand videos from the event, and subscribe to the Docker YouTube channel to be notified as videos are uploaded.

Learn more

• DockerCon 2023 videos on-demand
• Docker YouTube channel
• DockerCon archives on YouTube: 2020, 2021, 2022
• Docker Desktop 4.24: Compose Watch, Resource Saver, and Docker Engine
• Announcing Docker Compose Watch GA Release
• Docker’s Journey Toward Enabling Lightning-Fast Developer Innovation: Unveiling Performance Milestones
• What is Resource Saver Mode in Docker Desktop and what problem does it solve?, by Ajeet Raina on Collabnix
• Announcing Docker Scout GA: Actionable Insights for the Software Supply Chain
• Announcing Udemy + Docker Partnership
• Docker dives into AI to help developers build GenAI apps, by Sean Michael Kerner on VentureBeat
• Docker Announces Docker AI, Boosting Developer Productivity Through Context-Specific, Automated Guidance
• Docker Announces New Local + Cloud Products to Accelerate Delivery of Secure Apps
• Docker with Neo4j, LangChain, and Ollama Launches New GenAI Stack for Developers
• Signing Docker Official Images Using OpenPubkey
• Announcing Docker AI/ML Hackathon 
• Register for the Docker AI/ML Hackathon

Here’s what’s included in the new GenAI Stack:

1. Pre-configured LLMs: We provide preconfigured Large Language Models (LLMs), such as  Llama2, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4, to jumpstart your AI projects.

2. Ollama management: Ollama simplifies the local management of open source LLMs, making your AI development process smoother.

3. Neo4j as the default database: Neo4j serves as the default database, offering graph and native vector search capabilities. This helps uncover data patterns and relationships, ultimately enhancing the speed and accuracy of AI/ML models. Neo4j also serves as a long-term memory for these models.

4. Neo4j knowledge graphs: Neo4j knowledge graphs to ground LLMs for more precise GenAI predictions and outcomes.

5. LangChain orchestration: LangChain facilitates communication between the LLM, your application, and the database, along with a robust vector index. LangChain serves as a framework for developing applications powered by LLMs. This includes LangSmith, an exciting new way to debug, test, evaluate, and monitor your LLM applications.

6. Comprehensive support: To support your GenAI journey, we provide a range of helpful tools, code templates, how-to guides, and GenAI best practices. These resources ensure you have the guidance you need.

Conclusion

The GenAI Stack simplifies AI/ML integration, making it accessible to developers. Docker’s commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration means we’re excited to see the practical applications and solutions that will emerge from this ecosystem. Join us as we make AI/ML more accessible and straightforward for developers everywhere.

The GenAI Stack is available in Early Access now and is accessible from the Docker Desktop Learning Center or on GitHub. 

Participate in our Docker Docker AI/ML Hackathon to show off your most creative AI/ML solutions built on Docker. Read our blog post “Announcing Docker AI/ML Hackathon” to learn more.

At DockerCon 2023, Docker also announced its first AI-powered product, Docker AI. Sign up now for early access to Docker AI. 

Learn more

• Find the GenAI Stack on GitHub.
• Join the Docker Docker AI/ML Hackathon.
• Sign up now for early access to Docker AI. 
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

Instructors on Udemy have in-depth knowledge and experience about Docker’s suite of development tools, services, trusted content, and automations. As a leading destination for online learning and skill development, Udemy offers course content that is accessible, inclusive, and attainable for a broad range of developers. This Docker + Udemy partnership will establish a key destination for developers and hobbyists who want to further their Docker education. Together, Docker and Udemy will enhance their communities with shared standards, education paths, and credibility.

This partnership will bring Docker educational content together into easy-to-navigate learning paths to help developers prepare for future certification exams to demonstrate skills mastery. Additionally, this platform aims to create a streamlined way for developers to gain knowledge, receive badges, and stay current on the latest content, including faster access to trainings on new Docker features, by inviting Udemy instructors to become Docker Certified Instructors where they can preview new features and prepare training content for distribution the moment a new update goes live.

These courses and their curricula will also be vetted by Docker and experts from the Docker community. And, in the true spirit of open source, these curricula will be made publicly available for all content creators to use.  

In the coming months, we will invite members of the Docker community who are experienced instructors and content creators to create Docker courses on Udemy, or bring their existing content into our learning paths. We are thrilled to be able to bring our community into this endeavor and to amplify visibility for the community.

Stay tuned for more details on this partnership soon. To get started today and gain access to Udemy’s collection of more than 350 Docker courses, developers can visit: https://www.udemy.com/topic/docker/.

Learn more

• Check out Udemy’s collection of Docker courses.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

The Docker AI/ML Hackathon is open from October 3 – November 7, 2023. DockerCon in-person attendees are invited to the dedicated hackspace, where you can chat with fellow developers, Dockhands, and our partners Datastax, Navan.ai, Neo4J, OctoML, and Ollama. 

We’ll also host virtual webinars, Q&A, and engaging chats throughout the next five weeks to keep the ideas flowing.

Register for the Docker AI/ML Hackathon to participate and to be notified of event activities.

Hackathon tips

Docker AI/ML Hackathon participants are encouraged to build solutions that are innovative, applicable in real life, use Docker technology, and have an impact on developer productivity.  Submissions can also be non-code proof-of-concepts, extensions that improve Docker workflows, or integrations to improve existing AI/ML solutions.  

Solutions should be AI/ML projects or models built using Docker technology and distributed through DockerHub, AI/ML integrations into Docker products that improve the developer experience, or extensions of Docker products that make working with AI/ML more productive.

Submissions should be a working application or a non-code proof of concept. We would like to see submissions as close to a real-world implementation as possible, but we will accept submissions that are not fully functional with a strong proof of concept. Additionally, all submissions should include a 3-5 minute video that showcases the hack along with background and context (we will not judge the submission on the quality or editing of the video itself). 

After submitting your solution, you’ll be in the running for $20,000 in cash prizes and exclusive Docker swag. Judging will be based on criteria such as the applicability of the solution, innovativeness of the solution, incorporation of Docker tooling, and impact on the developer experience and productivity.

Get started 

Follow the #DockerHackathon hashtag on social media platforms and join the Docker AI/ML Hackathon Slack channel to connect with other participants.

Check out the site for full details about the Docker AI/ML Hackathon and register to start hacking today! 

Submissions close on November 7, 2023, at 5 PM Pacific Time (November 8 at 1 AM UTC).

Learn more

• Register for the Docker AI/ML Hackathon.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

With our collective global return to the “new normal,” DockerCon 2023 will be hybrid — both live (in Los Angeles, California) and virtual. Our desire is to once again experience the live magic of the hallway track, the serendipitous developer-to-developer sharing of tips and tricks, and the celebration of our community’s accomplishments … all while looking forward together toward a really exciting future. And for members of our community who can’t attend in person, we hope you’ll join us virtually!

In the spirit of keeping this post brief, I’ll share a few community highlights here, but expect much more news and updates next week at DockerCon! 

Our open source projects — containerd, Compose, BuildKit, moby/moby, and others — continue to scale in terms of contributions, contributors, and stars. Thank you! 

And overall, our developer community is now at 20M monthly active IPs, 16M registered developers, 15M Docker Hub repos, and 16B image pulls per month from Docker Hub. Again, we’re humbled by this continued growth, engagement, and enthusiasm of our developer community.

And in terms of looking forward to what’s next … well, you gotta tune-in to DockerCon to find out! 😀 But, seriously, there’s never been a better time to be a developer. To wit, with the digitization of All The Things, there’s a need for more than 750 million apps in the next couple of years. That means there’s a need for more developers and more creativity and innovation. And at DockerCon you’ll hear how our community plans to help developers capitalize on this opportunity.

Specifically, and without revealing too much here: We see a chance to bring the power of the cloud to accelerate the developer’s “inner loop,” before the git commit and CI. Furthermore, we see an untapped opportunity to apply GenAI to optimize the non-code gen aspects of the application. By some accounts, this encompasses 85% or more of the overall app.

Piqued your interest? Hope so! 😀 Looking forward to seeing you at DockerCon!

sj

Learn more

• Register for DockerCon.
• Register for DockerCon workshops.
• Watch past DockerCon videos: 2020, 2021, 2022.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

On October 3, we will have several DockerCon hands-on workshops, organized by fantastic presenters, covering a variety of topics. If you’re joining in person, the workshops are included in the price of your admission. Just don’t forget to register for the workshop you’d like to attend! 

If you’ll be attending DockerCon virtually, the Getting Started with Docker workshop is free, and the other workshops cost US$150. This is a fantastic opportunity to use any learning and development allocations you might have!

What are the workshops and what will they cover? I’m glad you asked! Let’s dive in.

Getting Started with Docker

Are you new to Docker? Are you overwhelmed with everything there is to learn? Are you unsure why you should learn about containers and you don’t understand their benefits? Or do you just want to help your team be more productive? If so, this workshop is for you!

This workshop will walk through the basics of containers and images, including answering the question: Why should I even care about containers? You’ll then learn how to run containers, create your own images, and set up your own development environments to enable the success of your team. The workshop will close out by introducing Docker Compose, which makes it even easier to share your dev environment — devs will only need to run git clone and docker compose up and then focus on their code.

After this session, you’ll have the basic knowledge to help your team be more productive with containerized dev environments. It’ll also be a fantastic primer to help you get the most out of the rest of DockerCon.

Docker for Machine Learning / AI / Data Science

The AI/ML space has exploded with activity and excitement over the past year. There are many great tools available, but keeping up with everything can be hard. If you want to get caught up and started with AI/ML, this is the workshop for you.

This workshop is being provided through a close collaboration with OctoML and Docker. In this workshop, you’ll start with a crash course on the latest developments in generative LLMs and image generation models, after which you’ll learn about fine-tuning your own model. You’ll then take that knowledge and create a multi-modal containerized application using Python and Docker. The workshop wraps up with a fireside chat and Q&A with the presenters and speakers, allowing you to dive in deep!

After this workshop, you’ll have a better understanding of the recent advancements in the AI/ML space and have successfully created your own AI/ML-supported application.

Secure Development with Docker

Modern applications are composed of many libraries and components from various sources being built and deployed on various systems, making it difficult for developers, platform teams, and security professionals to know what software is running and whether it is secure. Issues may arise from your own code, its dependencies, base images, and many other sources — and new vulnerabilities are being discovered all the time! If you want to secure your software supply chain, this is the workshop for you.

In this workshop, you’ll start off by learning about and remediating several common attacks against your software supply chain. From there, you’ll dive deeply into securing the software supply chain, taking a comprehensive view of the problem and possible solutions. With this knowledge, you’ll learn how Docker Scout helps you understand what’s in your images, how those images are constructed, what’s running where, and providing actionable feedback early in the process so concerns are eliminated before they become problems.

After this session, you’ll know how to take these learnings back to your organization so your team:

• Understands and can verify how their applications are built
• Quickly and easily identifies problems with your software supply chain and remediates them
• Uses policies to encourage best practices across your organization without blocking fixes getting to production
• Provides visibility into the security stance of your software to others within your organization

Docker for Web Development

Are you a web developer who isn’t quite sure why you should use Docker in your development environment? Or are you just not quite sure how to get started? If so, this workshop is specifically for you.

The Docker for Web Development workshop is being presented by Timo Stark, a Docker Captain and Principal Engineer at NGINX. This hands-on workshop starts with an overview of Docker Desktop, ensuring everyone understands the basics of containers and images. With that foundational knowledge, you’ll spend the remainder of the workshop building an application, containerizing it along the way, using a combination of NodeJS and PHP backends and a React frontend. You’ll learn how to connect multiple services together and build a development environment that will require no installation and configuration (beyond Docker Desktop), helping speed up productivity and ensuring reliable environments across your development team.

After this session, you’ll have a strong understanding of how Docker can be used to speed up your web development stack and how you can help enable your team to be more productive and have more consistent environments.

Register now

DockerCon is coming up quickly! We’d love to see you in person, but you’re welcome to join us virtually as well. Visit the DockerCon site to register for the conference, see the program, and register for workshops now.

Learn more

• Register for DockerCon
• Register for DockerCon workshops
• See the DockerCon program
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

Since then, I’ve helped organize, run, and speak at many meetups, and I was recognized as a Docker Captain in March 2017. I even received the inaugural Community Leader of the Year award for the North America region in 2018. As I look back throughout my career, many of my fondest memories can be attributed to my time at DockerCon. This will be my sixth in-person DockerCon, and here are four reasons I’m happy to be back in person this year.

Let’s go!

#1 — Developer-focused content

We’ve all been to many “developer-focused” conferences, only to find out most of the sessions are sponsored sessions, the keynotes are relatively boring, and there really isn’t much focus on developers. I remember going to DockerCons and learning everything about Docker’s latest features, scaling our efforts to my team and across the organization, deepening my understanding of various cloud-native design patterns and architectures, and helping my team be as productive as possible. Especially earlier in my career, this experience helped me become the developer I am today.

As I’m helping plan DockerCon this year, I’ll admit we want all of the same things from the past, just updated. We want to help each and every developer better their craft and better deliver results for their customers… whoever they might be.

#2 — The hallway track

Honestly, this is probably one of my favorite parts of DockerCon.The Hallway Track is a special track of DockerCon in which attendees can network and learn from each other. If you want to learn about something, simply make a request! If you want to teach others, submit a session! Then, small groups get together and just chat. These hallway moments have truly been some of the best moments of DockerCon, both learning and teaching. There’s simply no better way to learn than from others who have walked the same journey.

#3 — Reconnecting with and making new friends

During my time as a Docker Captain from 2017-2022 (I had to semi-retire when I joined Docker), DockerCon was such a fun time to get together and spend time with my fellow Captains. In many ways, this felt like a family reunion. We learned together, taught each other, and provided insight and direction to the Docker product and executive teams. 

Although connecting with old friends was great, I always made new friends every year. Many of those came from the Hallway Track, but random conversations at meals, the conference party, and other one-offs have provided me with friendships and contacts I still use to this day. Whenever I’m stuck with any problem, there’s a good chance I can reach out to someone that I met at DockerCon.

#4 — Fun all around!

I may or may not be known for roaming around the DockerCon EU 2017 vendor hall in an inflatable dinosaur suit or using that same suit to start my “Containers for Beginners” talk at DockerCon 2019. Why? To be completely honest, because it’s fun! And while a conference isn’t only about having fun, it’s certainly a lot easier to be a part of a community when you’re doing so. DockerCon is not afraid to have a little bit of fun.

While these are some of the reasons I’m excited to have DockerCon back in person this year, and I’m sure there are tons more! We’d love to hear what makes you excited. Tweet #DockerCon why you’re excited, and we just might highlight you.

Learn more at the DockerCon 2023 website and register by August 31 to take advantage of early bird pricing. 

Learn more

• Register for DockerCon 2023.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.

In part one of this two-part series, we discussed the intersection of Web3 and Docker at a conceptual level. In this post, it’s time to get our hands dirty and review practical examples involving decentralized storage.

We’d like to see how we can integrate Web3 projects with Docker. At the beginning we have to choose from two options:

1. We can use Docker to containerize any Web3 application. We can also start an IPFS daemon or an Ethereum node inside a container. Docker resembles an infrastructure layer since we can run almost anything within containers.
2. What’s most interesting is integrating Docker itself with Web3 projects. That includes using Web3 to help us when we start containers or run something inside containers. In this post, we’ll focus on this portion.

The two most obvious integration points for a container engine are execution and storage. We choose storage here since more mature decentralized storage options are currently available. There are a few interesting approaches for decentralized versions of cloud container runtimes (like ankr), but they’re more likely replacements for container orchestrators like Kubernetes — not the container engine itself.

Let’s use Docker with decentralized storage. Our example uses Storj, but all of our examples apply to almost any decentralized cloud storage solution.

Storj is a decentralized cloud storage where node providers are compensated to host the data, but metadata servers (which manage the location of the encrypted pieces) are federated (many, interoperable central servers can work together with storage providers).

It’s important to mention that decentralized storage almost always requires you to use a custom protocol. A traditional HTTP upload is a connection between one client and one server. Decentralization requires uploading data to multiple servers. 

Our goal is simple: we’d like to use docker push and docker pull commands with decentralized storage instead of a central Docker registry. In our latest DockerCon presentation, we identified multiple approaches:

• We can change Docker and containerd to natively support different storage options
• We can provide tools that magically download images from decentralized storage and persists them in the container engine’s storage location (in the right format, of course)
• We can run a service which translates familiar Docker registry HTTP requests to a protocol specific to the decentralized cloud
  • Users can manage this themselves.
  • This can also be a managed service.

Leveraging native support

I believe the ideal solution would be to extend Docker (and/or the underlying containerd runtime) to support different storage options. But this is definitely a bigger challenge. Technically, it’s possible to modify every service, but massive adoption and a big user base mean that large changes require careful planning.

Currently, it’s not readily possible to extend the Docker daemon to use special push or pull targets. Check out our presentation on extending Docker if you’re interested in technical deep dives and integration challenges. The best solution might be a new container plugin type, which is being considered.

One benefit of this approach would be good usability. Users can leverage common push or pull commands. But based on the host, the container layers can be sent to a decentralized storage.

Using tool-based push and pull

Another option is to upload or download images with an external tool — which can directly use remote decentralized storage and save it to the container engine’s storage directory.

One example of this approach (but with centralized storage) is the AWS ECR container resolver project. It provides a CLI tool which can pull and push images using a custom source. It also saves them as container images of the containerd daemon.

Unfortunately this approach also have some strong limitations:

• It couldn’t work with a container orchestrator like Kubernetes, since they aren’t prepared to run custom CLI commands outside of pulling or pushing images.
• It’s containerd specific. The Docker daemon – with different storage – couldn’t use it directly.
• The usability is reduced since users need different CLI tools.

Using a user-manager gateway

If we can’t push or pull directly to decentralized storage, we can create a service which resembles a Docker registry and meshes with any client.ut under the hood, it uploads the data using the decentralized storage’s native protocol.

This thankfully works well, and the standard Docker registry implementation is already compatible with different storage options. 

At Storj, we already have an implementation that we use internally for test images. However, the nerdctl ipfs subcommand is another good example for this approach (it starts a local registry to access containers from IPFS).

We have problems here as well:

• Users should run the gateway on each host. This can be painful alongside Kubernetes or other orchestrators.
• Implementation can be more complex and challenging compared to a native upload or download.

Using a hosted gateway

To make it slightly easier one can provide a hosted version of the gateway. For example, Storj is fully S3 compatible via a hosted (or self-hosted) S3 compatible HTTP gateway. With this approach, users have three options:

• Use the native protocol of the decentralized storage with full end-to-end encryption and every feature
• Use the convenient gateway services and trust the operator of the hosted gateways.
• Run the gateway on its own

While each option is acceptable, a perfect solution still doesn’t exist.

Using Docker Extensions

One of the biggest concerns with using local gateways was usability. Our local registry can help push images to decentralized storage, but it requires additional technical work (configuring and running containers, etc.)

This is where Docker Extensions can help us. Extensions are a new feature of Docker Desktop. You can install them via the Docker Dashboard, and they can provide additional functionality — including new screens, menu items, and options within Docker Desktop. These are discoverable within the Extensions Marketplace:

And this is exactly what we need! A good UI can make Web3 integration more accessible for all users.

Docker Extensions are easily discoverable within the Marketplace, and you can also add them manually (usually for the development).

At Storj, we started experimenting with better user experiences by developing an extension for Docker Desktop. It’s still under development and not currently in the Marketplace, but feedback so far has convinced us that it can massively improve usability, which was our biggest concern with almost every available integration option.

Extensions themselves are Docker containers, which make the development experience very smooth and easy. Extensions can be as simple as a metadata file in a container and static HTML/JS files. There are special JavaScript APIs that manipulate the Docker daemon state without a backend.

You can also use a specialized backend. The JavaScript part of the extension can communicate with any containerized backend via a mounted socket.

The new docker extension command can help you quickly manage extensions (as an example: there’s a special docker extension dev debug subcommand that shows the Web Developer Toolbar for Docker Desktop itself.)

Thanks to the provided developer tools, the challenge is not creating the Docker Desktop extension, but balancing the UI and UX.

Summary

As we discussed in our previous post, Web3 should be defined by user requirements, not by technologies (like blockchain or NFT). Web3 projects should address user concerns around privacy, data control, security, and so on. They should also be approachable and easy to use.

Usability is a core principle of containers, and one reason why Docker became so popular. We need more integration and extension points to make it easier for Web3 project users to provide what they need. Docker Extensions also provide a very powerful way to pair good integration with excellent usability.

We welcome you to try our Storj Extension for Docker (still under development). Please leave any comments and feedback via GitHub.