Docker Acquires SocketPlane To Promote Networking API Standards For Its Container Technology

On Wednesday, Docker announced the acquisition of SocketPlane, the software defined networking startup. From its inception in Q4 of 2014, SocketPlane sought to deliver networking specific to the Docker platform for distributed applications and participated extensively in early initiatives focused around building Docker’s open API for networking. As part of Docker, the SocketPlane team will focus on facilitating the development of networking APIs with Docker’s partner ecosystem. The acquisition of SocketPlane means that developers and Docker users can build applications knowing that they have a myriad of networking options for their Docker-based applications that collectively leverage one standard API protocol. Madhu Venugopal, CEO of SocketPlane, remarked on his experience with SocketPlane as follows:

We started SocketPlane with a goal of creating the best networking solution in the Docker ecosystem. We’re now excited to be broadening that vision to support and empower the partner ecosystem to create the best solutions possible for users. Given the myriad of networking use cases enabled by Docker, we believe strongly that we will be fostering broad opportunities for partners to build differentiated capabilities based upon Docker’s open standards.

Here, Venugopal elaborates on how SocketPlane intends to “empower the partner ecosystem” to create the most effective networking solutions for the Docker platform. As a result, Docker stands to bless a variety of APIs that allow vendors to select the networking option that optimally integrates with their platform while nevertheless conforming to the API standardization promoted by the acquisition of SocketPlane. Meanwhile, Adam Johnson, General Manager of Midokura, noted that Wednesday’s “Docker acquisition of SocketPlane is significant as it validates the need for overlay networking options within the popular Docker open source ecosystem, and now provides Docker with the right expertise to expand its own networking options, which will be hugely beneficial to the industry.” Johnson remarks on how SocketPlane’s acquisition stands to siginificantly expand Docker’s range of networking options in ways that benefit not only Docker, but also the entire industry insofar as anyone leveraging Docker’s containers for application development and portability will soon have access to an expanded range of networking options for Docker deployments. Docker’s acquisition of SocketPlane illustrates the acuity of Docker’s vision with respect to potential partners in conjunction with a perspicacious line of sight into the importance of building standardization into the proliferation of networking APIs for the Docker platform.