Google and Containers
November 5, 2014
I have been following the container technology now associated closely with Docker. The Docker Web site offers useful information about the innovation. In a nutshell, if you love virtualization, you know that it has some portability issues. If the notion of “portability” does not resonate with you, you probably won’t need to dig into containers. Containers eliminates most, but not all, of the hassles of creating an application, sticking it on a virtual machine somewhere, and then moving it, changing it, or integrating it. With containers, life gets a little easier.
In the write up “Google Cloud Platform Live: Introducing Container Engine, Cloud Networking and Much More” Google embraces containers. The article is long by Google’s standards. You can work through it and learn one surprising thing: Google did not wrest container leadership from Docker.
I find this interesting because in the period prior to the run up for Google’s initial public offering, Google was the leader in distributed processing. I can recall Jeff Dean explaining some of Google’s innovations in a couple of lectures. I thought that Google had snagged the best ideas from research computing and productized them for the Google Web search system. Google looked like the leader in next generation cloud-centric processing.
Docker’s emergence as the go to container company illustrates that Google has matured. The company is supporting containers in the manner of Docker. Google explains this in the article. Has Google lost its ability to spot and commercialize innovative ways to deliver apps and services?
This container move is not taking place in a vacuum. Amazon and others are eager to “me too” containers. And what of Docker? Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, November 5, 2014
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