ClusterHQ’s Docker Container Management Technology Addresses Data Layer Of Docker Applications

ClusterHQ today announced the integration of its Flocker container management technology with Docker’s fig file format, thereby enabling customers to deploy and manage Docker containers on multiple servers, data centers and cloud providers. Importantly, ClusterHQ’s Flocker technology tackles a problem addressed by few Docker orchestration frameworks by enabling data layers installed within Docker containers to similarly migrate across host environments instead of remaining attached to the machine on which the Docker container in question is installed. Whereas existing container management technologies solve the problem of managing the migration and deployment of containers that house applications within multiple environments, Flocker’s solution uniquely addresses the challenge of managing databases, key value stores and data layers within container environments.

Michael Coté, Research Director, Infrastructure Software at The 451 Group, remarked on the significance of ClusterHQ’s innovation with respect to the data layer and Docker containers as follows:

We’re seeing activity around Docker grow incredibly quickly, with application developers only beginning to find the edges of what’s possible – including how to architect their applications appropriately for operations to deploy and manage. Management of the data layer has always been difficult with containers, yet is a critical need for production operations, since every application has to deal with state. It’s great to see ClusterHQ working on this layer of the Docker container stack.

Here, Coté comments on the challenges developers have encountered with respect to management of the data layer in relation to Docker technology. Coté elaborates on how data layer management is critical because applications need to register states, one component of which concerns the data repositories that represent one dimension of the application’s history. ClusterHQ’s announcement of the integration of its Flocker container management technology with Docker’s fig file format comes in the wake of last week’s announcement by Amazon Web Services of it support for Docker technology by means of a container management framework specific to AWS. Unlike AWS’s container management framework and Google’s Kubernetes, however, Flocker takes up a vendor agnostic position with respect to cloud infrastructures by integrating directly with Docker technology, thereby enabling it to interoperate on any cloud platform or environment featuring Docker containers. As a result, Flocker facilitates the management of Docker containers across multiple data centers and cloud vendors and thereby delivers a uniquely vendor-agnostic solution to Docker orchestration and container management in conjunction with its focus on the data layer of Docker applications.