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Microsoft, Oracle join open source container revolution

By Marilyn de Villiers
Johannesburg, 20 Sept 2017

The rise of containers - hailed as a solution to the problem of how to get software to run reliably when moved from one computing environment to another - has made giant strides since its introduction by Docker way back in 2013.

In fact, containers have shaken the very foundations of the development world as evidenced by the large application development platforms and tooling providers like Microsoft and Oracle - once exclusively proprietary providers - shifting to more open source-friendly models to accommodate them.

So, for example, Red Hat - which bills itself as the world's leading provider of open source enterprise IT solutions - and Microsoft, which was probably a major catalyst for the development backlash that morphed into the open source movement - are now alliance partners.

However, a recent announcement from the two companies of an expansion of their applications with plans for new initiatives aimed at enabling enterprises to more easily adopt containers barely raised an eyebrow within the open source community.

Compare that to the frenzied, anxiety-fuelled anger and scepticism that greeted Microsoft's announcement just more than six months ago that it, the great anti-open source ogre, was joining the Linux Foundation.

Red Hat and Microsoft's plans include native support for Windows Server containers on Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Microsoft Azure, and SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift. These developments are expected to be made available in early 2018.

Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise-grade, Kubernetes-based container application platform, will therefore become the first container application platform built from the Open Source Kubernetes project to support both Linux and Windows container workloads in a single platform across the multiple environments of the hybrid cloud.

"Microsoft and Red Hat are aligned in our commitment to bring enterprise customers the hybrid cloud solutions they need to modernise their businesses as they shift to operate in a cloud-native world," said John Gossman, Lead Azure Architect at Microsoft.

"We're extending this commitment as we again join forces to bring fully integrated solutions that simplify container adoption and help customers make the most of their hybrid cloud strategies."

Meanwhile Oracle, whose seven-year legal battle with Google over Google's alleged infringement of Java copyright in its development of the Android platform is creeping to its conclusion via the US Federal Appeals Court, has significant plans regarding containers - particularly Kubernetes - and the Open Source container community.

In a recent interview with Tech Target associate editor Fred Churchville, Bob Quillin, vice president of the Oracle container group, acknowledged that the database company's commitment to containers and the "open community" might not be "very Oracle-like, but is actually pretty much what the customers are asking for".

"We've had a lot of activity and a lot of focus around the container world...(and) we're going to have more announcements that hold together container platform, Kubernetes orchestration, microservices and how to really deliver these in an integrated way," Quillin said.

"These are all part of the next wave of technologies that we (Oracle) want to be able to offer in a container-native management solution. We want to take advantage of our bare-metal infrastructure environment but also leverage these open source tools and the community that's developing around this.... We want to have integration, but we also want to allow you to use the models you want to use [and] enjoy the benefits of the open community."

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