Kubernetes is going to support rkt

[iyn]

I've been using CoreOS & Docker for about 3 months now in production (stable channel on AWS). At the moment I have a "cluster" of 2 machines on AWS and 1 simple CI server on DigitalOcean, also on CoreOS & Docker. It wasn't easy for me to get used to "the docker way" of doing things, but I think I'm quite fluent in using Docker & building containers now. Setting up everything is very easy & productive, they have a great documentation (example: https://coreos.com/docs/running-coreos/cloud-providers/ec2/). If you're interested, you can setup a test VMs using Vagrant, this takes like 5 minutes: https://coreos.com/docs/running-coreos/platforms/vagrant/

However, I don't really feel comfortable with Docker security and I will probably switch to rkt - more focus on security and better approach to containers imo. CoreOS is incredibly good product, these people see the future. Full disclosure: I'm very happy user of CoreOS products.

[eropple]

I'm in a similar place with regards to Docker versus Rocket, but I'm not a big fan of CoreOS right now. I think it's got some real neat ideas, but in my experience with it "everything in a container" is as yet unmanageable at scale. And I'm very uncomfortable with signing over the entirety of my infrastructure to a small company whose--venture-backed, which makes me extremely uncomfortable when it comes to running my platform and infrastructure--goals are not clear to me. (I have less of a beef with, say, Chef, with much more of a history and more generally understood goals and a business model, but I'm still not super comfortable with them, either.)

I also don't much care for etcd, because IMO Zookeeper's rep for complexity is hugely overblown and most folks end up re-implementing Zookeeper poorly in etcd, but that's a side thing.

All that said, I agree with you that Rocket is a much, much better idea and design, and that despite my misgivings about their corporate goals CoreOS is a way more serious project from a security standpoint than Docker. I'm excited to see this, if only because I think Rocket will pick up some dV from this.

[t4nkd]

Just anecdotally, I've had the shittiest experience in recent memory with CoreOS. Their choice of BTRFS bites me pretty much daily whenever logs start writing stack traces for errors. A similar problem happened when Deis chose CephFS for their registry container.

While I'm a huge fan of Docker I will maintain that CoreOS is not ready for production in most capacities and recommend against using it in its current form.

[justincormack]

What security differences do you see now?

[thinkersilver]

The title is slightly misleading but not entirely. Docker was, at first, a container technology. However, after it received its funding it has tried to convince the community and investors that it can be more and started to provide container orchestration tools, i.e Swarm, Machine and so on. Docker has received most of its momentum and attention because of the work they did around the container format. Docker build, run, stop, encapsulates most users experience of Docker.

Docker wants to be known as a platform providing container management tools and it needs to do this quickly because Mesosphere and Kubernetes provide this type of functionality at a more mature level, albeit using somewhat different philosophies. The container format part of Docker is ultimately replaceable.

Google (Ventures) backing Tectonic is significant because Tectonic will provide a commercial enterprise-ready distribution of Kubernetes supporting Rocket. Rocket doesn't need to reach feature-parity with Docker to be a notable replacement because Docker already does too much. All Rocket needs to do is provide the much needed enterprise features that Docker is lacking and integrate well with Mesosphere or Kubernetes. If this happens before Swarm and Machine mature, we could be wondering 6 months down the road what the hype around Docker was all about.

If Tectonic succeeds in the enterprise marketplace then Google will have stealthily marginalised Docker using community efforts through rkt and kubernetes and not had to fight them directly.

[hyperliner]

Does the article read like a smoke screen, designed to push a specific agenda? Given that Kubernetes supports Docker too?

I love Rocket and Docker, but I don't love misleading sensationalism in tech reporting. Maybe my mistake is thinking of wired as tech reporting?

[hyperliner]

hmmm, my mistake. I should have read this more carefully.

"Google also offers cloud computing services a la Amazon, and it was the first big-name cloud company to embrace Docker. Since then, Amazon, Microsoft, and others have followed, responding to Docker’s enormous popularity among Silicon Valley developers. But now, Google is backing Rocket as well, rolling the technology into its Kubernetes cloud computing software. Google calls this “an important milestone for the Kubernetes project.”

My reco is update the title.

[bbrazil]

> The irony is that Docker is based on software that underpins Google’s vast online empire.

Doesn't Rocket also use cgroups?

[labianchin]

Yes, rkt App Container runtime is based on cgroups and namespaces. Same as runtimes of Docker, lmctfy, systemd-nspawn, lxc or (almost) any other container technology for Linux. The big difference is on specification of images. rkt introduced the App Container specification for its images: https://github.com/appc/spec/blob/master/SPEC.md#image-archi...

[davexunit]

They're all built on the same stuff: namespaces, cgroups, and chroots. It's just a matter of what terrible API they layer on top.

[justincormack]

Actually, it does not have to, it is a more general spec. Technically Docker doesnt need to either.

[twelvenmonkeys]

Isn't this obvious with the backing of CoreOS by Google Ventures?

[cmcluck]

Disclosure: I work at Google and am a co-founder of the Kubernetes project.

Actually no. Google Ventures runs quite autonomously from the product teams; I speak to them from time-to-time but they make their own decisions and don't influence ours.

We supported the rkt/appc PR because (1) we try hard to be an open community and to not play favorites, and (2) because we think the project has good promise as an open standard and as a lightweight modular runtime.

Please note that we are trying hard not to play favorites. Docker support will continue indefinitely and we will continue to make investments in the Docker community.

[skj]

Investments by Google Ventures are unconstrained by and untied from the rest of Google's corporate strategy.

[donflamenco]

Misleading article. The news is that Kubernetes is going to support coreos's rkt. It already supports Docker.

[cmcluck]

Disclosure: I work at Google and am a co-founder of the Kubernetes project.

Correct. We already support Docker and plan to indefinitely. This is us extending support to rkt/appc also.

[dang]

Thank you. Pretty shoddy on Wired's part.

We've updated the title. We can update it again if there's a better one.

[IBCNU]

Headline: Google backs alternative to AngularJS, the web's Last Next Big Thing. Google reveals the entire AngularJS project is a ruse designed to ruin countless weekends of aspiring web dev's! No backward compatibility, no human-readable documentation and no implementation of their own technology in their own core product line! In fact, Google states, AngularJS is their first experiment with using their "considerable weight" to trick engineers into learning a technology which is completely useless and unsupported in the long run.

[IBCNU]

Before I get down-voted to oblivion, apologies for snark but I think I'm making a valid point. A lot of engineer's decided to throw in with AngularJS because of Google's "considerable weight" but as we're seeing now, we're all getting burned. It's a fine technology but the pain points have been severe. My point being just because Google backs a technology doesn't mean it's going to be useful, and should instead be based on its merits.

[user_0001]

catchy!

[cies]

So true! :)

[outworlder]

How ironic. Docker is one of the biggest and most successful Go deployments there is.

[dragonwriter]

Google supports Docker, too; Google supporting multiple approaches to the same problem isn't new (heck, its not even that uncommon to have multiple solutions to the same problem originating at Google.)

[burke]

rkt is also written in Go.

[nchudleigh]

Shame they are so behind on development, I am in the process of learning Docker. Loving it so far..

[technological]

So if the article is true . Does it make sense or is it dumb to think that Docker would not be acquired by Google ? Since it is not backing up