Docker part 4: Microsoft CAN'T ignore it. Aux armes, citoyens!

Prognostication, Redmond and the Red Wedding

A disturbance in the force

Microsoft is jumping feet-first into the Docker hype machine and appears to be adding support for it to Windows Server, quite possibly in the next release of the product.

This is a major change in Microsoft's behaviour: Microsoft just doesn't embrace new technologies this fast. It took them practically forever to incorporate virtualization into Windows Server and they're still hopelessly behind VMware in most respects. Deduplication has the same story and the list goes on.

Microsoft, however, is changing. The introduction of Storage Replica puts them dangerously close to having a workable server SAN solution even before the industry has started working on the successor technology. That's just weird. That's very un-Microsoft.

And now…Docker. Docker isn't even fully baked. There are still some pretty major issues with the technology to be handled, and they just got their series C funding, moving them finally into the realm of Big Boy startups.

But Microsoft's on board. And Microsoft didn't even invent it. Microsoft has the most chronic case of "not invented here" syndrome of any entity in the tech world. Something is afoot.

Begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism

Docker is not a threat to hypervisors. Docker is, however, an existential threat to Microsoft.

The whole reason x86 virtualization exploded as it did is because installing more than one application per instance of Windows Server means you're barking mad. Windows applications interfere with each other. They represent security threats to one another. Worst of all, Windows needs to reboot for virtually every round of patches – including many application patches – meaning multiple applications on the same instance of Windows creates downtime. (Linux, Unix and BSD suffer from most of the above, but to a much lesser extent.)

So we all bought hypervisors. We wrap our applications in their own OS and run multiple of them to a single server. This drove utilisation up, but we're still far from actually exercising the hardware we buy.

Windows is a RAM hog.

But with Docker, this needn't be the case. We can wrap up groups of apps in a single OS. Keep the RAM utilisation low by minimising the number of Windows instances we need and maximising the server utilisation.

"Minimising the number of Windows instances we need". Oh.

Worse – far, far worse, from Microsoft's perspective – is that Docker obliterates Microsoft's monopoly on ease of use at the server level. Docker brings the ability to deploy server applications to Linux that have real-world configurations and not the generic horrors foisted upon us by distros.

Docker even allows the community to create application and configuration sets. Suddenly we've moved on from "yum install httpd" + two hours of beating an Apache config into shape to being within arm's reach of "push button receive bacon".

Docker brings the possibility that – without having to pay Microsoft/Amazon/Google a subscription fee for the cloud – everyday sysadmins can take advantage of the expertise of others. We could deploy properly secured applications in their own containers with a single click. Everything set up to best practices. Future developments will likely add a lot more automation, allowing for push-button orchestration without having to master Puppet.

The single most important mass market item in Microsoft's arsenal – the install wizard – is about to become obsolete. It's the open source crowd that has their hand on the tiller. And they're backed by tens of millions of dollars.

If Docker goes big – and with it being the current focus of all of Silicon Valley's religious zeal, hope and desperation I guarantee that it will – Microsoft could be in trouble. Windows risks actually becoming a "legacy" platform: something you only need if you are already deeply in bed with Microsoft, with Docker making extricating yourself easier with each passing day.

This is not 2004 any more. Microsoft does not have the clout to kill Docker, so without meaning to, Docker has caused something miraculous to occur.

For the first time in fifteen years, Microsoft is being forced to compete on merit.