Using Docker container technology with F5 Networks products and services

Using Docker Container
Technology with F5 Products
and Services
Docker is an emerging technology that promises a more optimal
application delivery lifecycle and lower overhead in the data center
and public or private cloud. Learn the concepts behind Docker and
how F5 solutions integrate to provide secure application delivery,
optimal performance, high availability, and scalability.
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Executive Summary
The evolving needs of IT and the advent of agile development and deployment
strategies has led to the emergence of “containerization,” an alternative to full
machine virtualization in which an application is encapsulated in a container with its
own operating environment. Containerization is an attractive solution that enables
developers to iterate faster. It also offers additional benefits that address the
overhead associated with virtual machines, allowing for higher utilization of
resources in the software-defined data center (SDDC).
Although containerization isn’t a new concept, Docker, developed by Docker, Inc.,
has been widely cited as the implementation of choice due to its broad industry
support, standardization, and comprehensive breadth of capability. In the
company’s words, Docker is “an open platform for building, shipping, and running
distributed applications. It gives programmers, development teams and operations
engineers the common toolbox they need to take advantage of the distributed and
networked nature of modern applications.” As such, Docker simplifies application
lifecycle management from development to deployment and enables application
portability. This simplification is critical for enterprises, considering that there are
multiple hosting options for an application, either in the public cloud or private cloud
infrastructure.
This paper outlines F5’s direction on using containers within F5 technology and for
supporting Docker for application delivery and security. Before we discuss this
strategy, it is important to recognize data center pain points and why these
technologies are critical for the next generation enterprise application delivery.
Note: This document is meant for IT decision makers, architects, and developers. It
is assumed that the reader has prior knowledge of virtualization technology,
software development, and release life cycle process.
Data Center Infrastructure Challenges
Several recent studies on data center infrastructure pain points have identified a
consistent set of needs for evolving the data center:
Faster application deployment methods
An improved workflow management process
Increased availability and utilization of compute resources
Improved agility to move workloads as needed
As new trends emerge in application development, enterprise customers are shifting
their view of the application lifecycle management model to the following:
Next-generation applications are increasingly built for “cloud first.”
Linux has become the de-facto operating system (OS) for cloud development.
Next generation cloud applications:
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Using Docker Container Technology with F5 Products and Services
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Data Center Infrastructure Challenges
Several recent studies on data center infrastructure pain points have identified a
consistent set of needs for evolving the data center:
Faster application deployment methods
An improved workflow management process
Increased availability and utilization of compute resources
Improved agility to move workloads as needed
As new trends emerge in application development, enterprise customers are shifting
their view of the application lifecycle management model to the following:
Next-generation applications are increasingly built for “cloud first.”
Linux has become the de-facto operating system (OS) for cloud development.
Next generation cloud applications:
Are designed to be stateless and utilize a loosely coupled micro service
architecture.
Utilize frameworks that allow services to be independently built without
software version or service dependencies.
Enterprises are increasingly adopting automation by using configuration
management tools (such as Puppet, Chef, and Ansible) and DevOps
orchestration to increase agility to release software.
As enterprises develop new and migrate existing applications into public
clouds, portability is key to avoiding vendor lock-in. Although virtual machine
(VM) technology provides a level of abstraction, each hypervisor implements its
environment differently and is therefore not fully portable.
Docker attempts to address these challenges and has therefore emerged as both a
leading and compelling technology for virtualizing the infrastructure.
Docker Overview
Containers enable virtualization at the OS level by isolating each application as an
OS process. The concept has been around in many forms in operating systems
such as BSD with Jails, in Oracle Solaris with Zones, and most recently in Linux
with LXC. Docker builds on LXC and has added the “easy button” to enable
developers to build, package, and deploy applications across cloud infrastructure
without requiring a hypervisor.
The following features differentiate Docker from other container technologies:
A lightweight abstraction layer (the Docker engine) on top of the OS to
manage isolation and networking between applications.
A documented application programming interface (API) to make Linux-based
application deployment simpler.
The Docker Registry for sharing applications with other users and developers.
Application portability between Docker-enabled hosts, whether physical,
virtual, or cloud-hosted.
A union file system exposing a common file system to all Docker containers.
An ecosystem of partner companies providing value-added services and
software, enabling Docker to integrate well into a broad variety of development
workstyles.
What is a union file system?
A union file system allows each container to provide its own services specific to that
container, even if the underlying path and filename collide with an underlying file. For
example, one container might need version 2.6 of a Python library whereas another
might require a later version. The underlying file system might provide version 2.6, in
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A documented application programming interface (API) to make Linux-based
application deployment simpler.
The Docker Registry for sharing applications with other users and developers.
Application portability between Docker-enabled hosts, whether physical,
virtual, or cloud-hosted.
A union file system exposing a common file system to all Docker containers.
An ecosystem of partner companies providing value-added services and
software, enabling Docker to integrate well into a broad variety of development
workstyles.
What is a union file system?
A union file system allows each container to provide its own services specific to that
container, even if the underlying path and filename collide with an underlying file. For
example, one container might need version 2.6 of a Python library whereas another
might require a later version. The underlying file system might provide version 2.6, in
which case one container is satisfied. However, the container requiring the later
version can supply this as part of its container image. This leads to a lower footprint
for container images since they need only contain what is strictly necessary for them
to run.
Summary of Docker Containerization and Virtual Machine
Technology
The diagram in Figure 1 illustrates the components used in VM and Docker
application deployments. Note that in this example, the VM approach has two guest
operating systems to support two applications. By comparison, Docker only
requires one host OS to achieve the same application density but, of course, it has a
lower overhead to do so.
Figure 1. A comparison of virtual machines and Docker containers on a single host.
The following table shows the comparison between VM and Docker capabilities.
VM Docker
Application storage
overhead
Gigabytes of OS overhead per
application.
One common OS for all
containers.Small Docker
engine overhead (megabytes).
Instantiation Boot-up time of OS and
application.
Application initiation time
only.
Resource allocation Rigid and monolithic.
Virtual CPUs are typically
allocated to physical CPU
Flexible.
Docker containers can be
allocated CPU limits and can
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Figure 1. A comparison of virtual machines and Docker containers on a single host.
The following table shows the comparison between VM and Docker capabilities.
VM Docker
Application storage
overhead
Gigabytes of OS overhead per
application.
One common OS for all
containers.Small Docker
engine overhead (megabytes).
Instantiation Boot-up time of OS and
application.
Application initiation time
only.
Resource allocation Rigid and monolithic.
Virtual CPUs are typically
allocated to physical CPU
cores or hyper threads.
Disk space is typically pre-
allocated to a VM host.
Flexible.
Docker containers can be
allocated CPU limits and can
share physical host CPU
cores very efficiently.
Docker memory usage may
be limited if desired, but
memory that is used can be
efficiently allocated among
processes on the host and its
containers.
Disk is shared via the union
file system.
Security Excellent.
VMs live in completely
separate worlds with little
sharing between them unless
deliberately permitted by the
hosting environment.
Good.
The OS kernel prevents
containers from accessing
each other’s memory space.
The union file system
provides each container a
read-only view of the shared
container. When a container
modifies anything, it is given a
container-specific copy of that
data, which is seen only by
that container.
Docker on Virtual Machines
As previously mentioned, the primary goal of Docker is to simplify application
lifecycle management. While Docker on bare metal is certainly a compelling option,
there are benefits to Docker running on hypervisors. These include the ability to
snapshot and allow for live migrations of an entire guest—both of which might be
key requirements for disaster recovery without losing in-flight state.
Leading infrastructure management and orchestration solutions such as VMware
vRealize Suite, OpenStack, and public clouds such as AWS and Azure all support
Docker on a given flavor of hypervisor but they expose a common environment to
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Docker on Virtual Machines
As previously mentioned, the primary goal of Docker is to simplify application
lifecycle management. While Docker on bare metal is certainly a compelling option,
there are benefits to Docker running on hypervisors. These include the ability to
snapshot and allow for live migrations of an entire guest—both of which might be
key requirements for disaster recovery without losing in-flight state.
Leading infrastructure management and orchestration solutions such as VMware
vRealize Suite, OpenStack, and public clouds such as AWS and Azure all support
Docker on a given flavor of hypervisor but they expose a common environment to
the Docker container, allowing for application portability regardless of environment.
This type of heterogeneous deployment model allows customers to start using
Docker and gain the benefits of being able to iterate more quickly without having to
change the underlying infrastructure.
By moving to a single VM and OS per host, customers can also gain resourcing
benefits since the VM do not have to contend for resources. This increase in
efficiency is due to the fact that memory and local disk can be allocated to that
single OS while the hypervisor no longer must arbitrate between multiple operating
systems.
Docker Networking Technical Overview
To accommodate high densities of containers on any given host, it is important to
understand the mechanism by which each container joins the network. Out of the
box, Docker provides each container a private address that is reachable directly only
from another container that resides on the same host.
In order for services to reach a container from another host, they must be routed to
through Docker’s iptables-based Network Address Translation (NAT) function. An
example is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Services are routed through Docker’s iptables-based NAT function to reach a
container on another host.
The host interface (Eth0) is exposed using another address (in this case, another
RFC1918 address, 192.168.10.10). Each Docker container is assigned an address
in the 172.x.x/16 space automatically when it is started. In order for a container to
communicate to entities outside of its host in a bidirectional fashion, it must be
assigned an explicit set of rules through iptables.
In the example shown in Figure 2, the rules have been configured such that the
containers may communicate through an IP and port mapping, exposing container
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Figure 2. Services are routed through Docker’s iptables-based NAT function to reach a
container on another host.
The host interface (Eth0) is exposed using another address (in this case, another
RFC1918 address, 192.168.10.10). Each Docker container is assigned an address
in the 172.x.x/16 space automatically when it is started. In order for a container to
communicate to entities outside of its host in a bidirectional fashion, it must be
assigned an explicit set of rules through iptables.
In the example shown in Figure 2, the rules have been configured such that the
containers may communicate through an IP and port mapping, exposing container
A as 192.168.10.10/port 80 and container B as 192.168.10.10/port 81. However,
container C can only communicate with the other two containers using the
172.17.0.x addressing.
Docker also supports IPv6 and permits the use of fully routable addresses. This
enables containers to communicate with others on different hosts without the need
for address mapping. However, this will only work for IPv6, so it may have limited
applicability for some environments.
SDN and Docker
Many software-defined data centers use the concept of Software-Defined
Networking (SDN) to flexibly deploy their guests. SDN allows isolated network
tunnels to be configured for independent tenants on the same physical hardware. It
can also be useful to provide tunneled layer 2 inside a cloud data center that would
otherwise be fully routed. Docker networking is built around the concept of the
Docker Bridge, which may be attached to an Open vSwitch to enable interoperability
with technologies such as VXLAN or GRE.
Using Open vSwitch in this manner allows for layer 2 network segregation for multi-
tenancy as well as for options to connect to other virtualized environments. For
example, it is likely that a data center utilizing Docker will still use virtual machines for
key services for which known dedicated resources should be reserved. These might
be application delivery services or high performance resources such as databases
and processing nodes. These resources may be connected to the network via
technologies like VXLAN or GRE so traffic from one tenant is not visible to another.
Scaling applications in this type of environment requires ADC services that can also
participate natively in the tunneling protocols. F5 offers multi-tenant VXLAN and
GRE capabilities so that functions such as load balancing, SSL offload, firewalling,
application security, NAT, and DNS services can be served to clients on the network
through a tunnel. Furthermore, F5 provides interoperability between tunnel
encapsulation types, including 802.1Q VLANs.
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technologies like VXLAN or GRE so traffic from one tenant is not visible to another.
Scaling applications in this type of environment requires ADC services that can also
participate natively in the tunneling protocols. F5 offers multi-tenant VXLAN and
GRE capabilities so that functions such as load balancing, SSL offload, firewalling,
application security, NAT, and DNS services can be served to clients on the network
through a tunnel. Furthermore, F5 provides interoperability between tunnel
encapsulation types, including 802.1Q VLANs.
Figure 3. F5 provides interoperability between tunnel encapsulation types, including 802.1Q
VLANs
In the example shown in Figure 3, core application tiers such as a database may be
located in a different part of the data center than the resources used to host Docker
instances. In such a case, the tenant network might make use of GRE or VXLAN to
isolate and join the two otherwise physically distinct subnets.
A BIG-IP solution can be seamlessly inserted into the network at the tenant level by
creating a VXLAN tunnel endpoint (VTEP) on the BIG-IP instance. It then becomes
part of the tenant network with connectivity to the Docker and virtual machine
instances.
Beginning in version 1.7, Docker will offer some experimental features that extend
the base Docker networking capabilities with SDN concepts. The plug-in
architecture provides an exciting opportunity to allow F5 network and application
delivery services to be inserted for a variety of new use cases, including next-
generation firewalling with application-fluent containers, container flow analysis and
policy enforcement, and per-flow traffic management.
F5 Direction on Docker Containerization
F5 offers a range of products to enable virtualization. As the ADC market leader with
the broadest portfolio of L4–L7 application delivery and security services in the
industry, F5 is constantly exploring innovative technologies and their benefits to end
customers. F5 is uniquely positioned to extend these technologies across BIG-IP
platforms since they all share a common underlying framework. Figure 4 shows the
range of F5's product offerings, from custom hardware to complete cloud-based
as-a-service offering for L4-L7 services.
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F5 Direction on Docker Containerization
F5 offers a range of products to enable virtualization. As the ADC market leader with
the broadest portfolio of L4–L7 application delivery and security services in the
industry, F5 is constantly exploring innovative technologies and their benefits to end
customers. F5 is uniquely positioned to extend these technologies across BIG-IP
platforms since they all share a common underlying framework. Figure 4 shows the
range of F5's product offerings, from custom hardware to complete cloud-based
as-a-service offering for L4-L7 services.
Figure 4. F5 provides a full range of application delivery and security services across a unified
platform
The F5® BIG-IP® platform is well positioned to support applications running on
Docker containers. These solutions provide the ability to scale containerized
applications as well as perform IPv4 to IPv6 and DNS translation between the
Docker infrastructure and the external network.
Scaling a Containerized Application
Scaling any form of application based on containers or virtual machines requires
some form of application delivery controller that offers, at the least, intelligent traffic
management functionality. In the example shown in Figure 5, a BIG-IP system can
be used as a physical or virtual appliance, or combined for high-availability. Its
function is to perform both intelligent traffic management and port remapping for a
single Virtual IP (VIP) address, exposing the application to clients.
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Scaling a Containerized Application
Scaling any form of application based on containers or virtual machines requires
some form of application delivery controller that offers, at the least, intelligent traffic
management functionality. In the example shown in Figure 5, a BIG-IP system can
be used as a physical or virtual appliance, or combined for high-availability. Its
function is to perform both intelligent traffic management and port remapping for a
single Virtual IP (VIP) address, exposing the application to clients.
Figure 5. Using an orchestration tool, an application is scaled by invoking a Docker container
on a new host
In Figure 5, there are three Docker hosts represented by IP1, IP2, and IP3 that, in
turn, map to two applications spread across 15 Docker containers with a variety of
port mappings. Using an orchestration tool (and perhaps combined with a self-
service interface for an application catalog), an application can be scaled by simply
invoking a Docker container on a new host. The setup is completed by adding new
iptables rules to map from the host interface to the private address for the new
container and adding the new container as a pool member for the application VIP in
the BIG-IP system. Similarly, when an application scales back, one or more
members can be removed from the pool using the same method. Using a BIG-IP
solution in this way allows for centralization of critical functions together with
hardware acceleration such as:
SSL offload with centralized certificate management
Acceleration such as compression, TCP optimization, and SPDY/HTTP2
Sophisticated firewalling with DoS protection
Application fluency to thwart application layer attacks
Visibility for all incoming and outgoing network connections
Much improved debugging through intelligent logging and anomaly detection
F5 and IPv4 to IPv6 Translation with DNS Support
Customers who wish to fully utilize a fully routable Docker container infrastructure
will require not just an efficient IPv4 to IPv6 network function, but also support for
translating DNS requests. The Docker container infrastructure can operate purely in
IPv6 and be completely isolated from IPv4 yet, at the same time, have a seamless
pathway to IPv4 connectivity.
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solution in this way allows for centralization of critical functions together with
hardware acceleration such as:
SSL offload with centralized certificate management
Acceleration such as compression, TCP optimization, and SPDY/HTTP2
Sophisticated firewalling with DoS protection
Application fluency to thwart application layer attacks
Visibility for all incoming and outgoing network connections
Much improved debugging through intelligent logging and anomaly detection
F5 and IPv4 to IPv6 Translation with DNS Support
Customers who wish to fully utilize a fully routable Docker container infrastructure
will require not just an efficient IPv4 to IPv6 network function, but also support for
translating DNS requests. The Docker container infrastructure can operate purely in
IPv6 and be completely isolated from IPv4 yet, at the same time, have a seamless
pathway to IPv4 connectivity.
Figure 6. BIG-IP systems perform both DNS64 and NAT64 to allow for IPv6 to IPv4
connectivity.
In the example shown in Figure 6, NAT64 and DNS64 services have been
provisioned (again, in any form, physical or virtual). The Docker container attempts a
connection to www.example.com for which, in this example, no IPv6 address exists.
The BIG-IP system is configured to be the DNS resolver for the Docker platform
installation. It is configured with an IPv6 address for the DNS resolver itself as well
as a special IPv6 prefix address (shown in red) for IPv4 to IPv6 translation.
Once the BIG-IP device has received the IPv6 DNS query, it first performs a
recursive operation to see if an IPv6 address is available. However, in this example,
the authoritative DNS server for www.example.com responds with an empty record
for the AAAA request. The BIG-IP device performs an IPv4 query, for which it
receives a DNS A record. It then prepends the special prefix address onto the IPv4
address and sends this back to the Docker client.
The Docker client now has its address resolved and so now initiates a TCP
connection. Because Docker is using the special prefix, this is recognized by the
NAT64 function as requiring IPv6 to IPv4 translation.
The NAT64 function creates a binding for the connection between the Docker IPv6
address, the specially prefixed NAT64 address for this IPv4 server, and the IPv4
server. The connection request is sent to the IPv4 server. All responses from that
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the authoritative DNS server for www.example.com responds with an empty record
for the AAAA request. The BIG-IP device performs an IPv4 query, for which it
receives a DNS A record. It then prepends the special prefix address onto the IPv4
address and sends this back to the Docker client.
The Docker client now has its address resolved and so now initiates a TCP
connection. Because Docker is using the special prefix, this is recognized by the
NAT64 function as requiring IPv6 to IPv4 translation.
The NAT64 function creates a binding for the connection between the Docker IPv6
address, the specially prefixed NAT64 address for this IPv4 server, and the IPv4
server. The connection request is sent to the IPv4 server. All responses from that
server, which responds via IPv4, are translated by the NAT64 function for
connectivity between the Docker container and the IPv4 server.
F5 Platform Evolution with Docker
As mentioned above, F5 recognizes the benefits of Docker in different use cases.
BIG-IP Virtual Editions
All BIG-IP products are available as virtual editions (VEs). A BIG-IP virtual edition
running as a container is well suited to provide advanced virtual networking
functions for NFV implementations that require higher performance services at lower
cost. By combining BIG-IP hardware appliances with virtual editions, customers are
able to scale out virtualized network services.
One of the advantages of building software with a variety of functions and footprints
in physical, virtual, and service-based forms is that it allows the right set of
functionality to be made available to suit the specific use case. Common deployment
models for Docker involve the need for differing levels of functionality in different
parts of the network. In the core of the network, the needs center on highly
programmable, REST-enabled load balancing services with extensibility for scripting
for certain application needs. These services need to be able to be instantiated
quickly, provide support for multiple applications at once, and be fully virtualized.
In Figure 7, BIG-IP VEs are used inside the Docker environment to provide core load
balancing services and port remapping with high availability. Any application in the
network can communicate with any other using a single virtual IP address (VIP),
allowing for scalability. And through an orchestration engine, services may be scaled
according to need. However, when the traffic traverses the network edge, the north-
south gateway needs to provide security services.
Figure 7. F5 virtual editions provide advanced traffic management services and port remapping
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quickly, provide support for multiple applications at once, and be fully virtualized.
In Figure 7, BIG-IP VEs are used inside the Docker environment to provide core load
balancing services and port remapping with high availability. Any application in the
network can communicate with any other using a single virtual IP address (VIP),
allowing for scalability. And through an orchestration engine, services may be scaled
according to need. However, when the traffic traverses the network edge, the north-
south gateway needs to provide security services.
Figure 7. F5 virtual editions provide advanced traffic management services and port remapping
with high availability inside the Docker environment.
Traffic rates may also be much higher at the edge because this is the consolidation
point for all of the applications in play. Therefore, performance is critical. For these
very reasons, F5 can provide SSL acceleration in hardware in addition to
functionality to identify and thwart threats from the inside or outside in real-time.
F5 and East-West Traffic Flows
Instances of F5 BIG-IP solutions can also be inserted between applications to
provide load balancing or security services, addressing the security concerns for
east-west traffic. For example, a Docker host can be configured to force traffic from
one container to traverse a BIG-IP system for analysis before it enters another. This
can be performed using BIG-IP Application Security Manager™ (ASM), which is
application-fluent and can detect whether the container in question is under an
attack such as exploitation of a vulnerability.
F5's Phased Approach to Docker Service Delivery
Today, F5 has many successful customer deployments that utilize Docker at
massive scale. The customer base spans many vertical markets, including financial,
telecommunications, and SaaS providers, to name a few. However, plans to support
Docker in both F5 physical and virtual products through cloud-based offerings and
the F5 Silverline platform will continue to expand as the Docker community gains
momentum. The table below gives a glimpse into some of the directions that F5 is
either exploring or actively developing.
Available Today Near Term Medium Term Future
BIG-IP platform
offerings performing
high availability and
scalability of
The new networking
capabilities of
Docker will allow for
insertion of new
F5 is also actively
engaged in
exploring new
capabilities for F5
F5 is looking to
expand the footprint
of elastic computing
manager for direct
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massive scale. The customer base spans many vertical markets, including financial,
telecommunications, and SaaS providers, to name a few. However, plans to support
Docker in both F5 physical and virtual products through cloud-based offerings and
the F5 Silverline platform will continue to expand as the Docker community gains
momentum. The table below gives a glimpse into some of the directions that F5 is
either exploring or actively developing.
Available Today Near Term Medium Term Future
BIG-IP platform
offerings performing
high availability and
scalability of
container
applications through
VIP to L4 port and IP
mapping with full
REST API for
orchestration
integration. The full
range of availability,
acceleration,
caching, and DNS
functions are
deployable for
Docker
environments
combined with F5’s
market-leading
security protection
and mitigation
capabilities.
Additionally, F5
offers plug-ins to
allow all BIG-IP form
factors to operate in
Docker
environments
utilizing OpenStack.
The new networking
capabilities of
Docker will allow for
insertion of new
services for
advanced east-west
traffic profiling,
policy enforcement
and security
analysis, together
with traffic
inspection and
visibility functionality.
F5 is also actively
engaged in
exploring new
capabilities for F5
vCMP® technology
to allow for high VM
density and also lay
the foundation for
vCMP to take
advantage of new
deployment models,
including Docker.
F5 is looking to
expand the footprint
of elastic computing
manager for direct
customer use,
allowing BIG-IP
solutions in any
format to harness
containerized
compute for
demanding
workloads.
Support for open
container standard
(OCS) to enable F5’s
virtualization services
to run across
multiple container
formats.
Conclusion
Docker presents clear opportunities to improve data center efficiency, whether
physical or cloud-based. At the same time, Docker adopters can be more confident
that their applications are portable to new environments. Critically, Docker allows
application developers to become more agile and deliver applications to market
faster. When evolving their DevOps to the Docker model, customers often take the
opportunity to introduce new workflows for self-service based around smaller
standardized services on which developers can place their applications.
Docker allows for applications to scale rapidly through lightweight container
instantiation, and F5 application delivery products fully support such environments.
Using F5 BIG-IP solutions, customers can orchestrate the full lifecycle of an
application. This can be done through comprehensive REST APIs for critical
operations, such as for the creation and maintenance of VIPs, centralized
SSL/certificate management, firewall services, and application security with high
availability in a multi-tenant architecture.
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Conclusion
Docker presents clear opportunities to improve data center efficiency, whether
physical or cloud-based. At the same time, Docker adopters can be more confident
that their applications are portable to new environments. Critically, Docker allows
application developers to become more agile and deliver applications to market
faster. When evolving their DevOps to the Docker model, customers often take the
opportunity to introduce new workflows for self-service based around smaller
standardized services on which developers can place their applications.
Docker allows for applications to scale rapidly through lightweight container
instantiation, and F5 application delivery products fully support such environments.
Using F5 BIG-IP solutions, customers can orchestrate the full lifecycle of an
application. This can be done through comprehensive REST APIs for critical
operations, such as for the creation and maintenance of VIPs, centralized
SSL/certificate management, firewall services, and application security with high
availability in a multi-tenant architecture.
Docker can be utilized in a variety of models, including public and private cloud
deployments. F5 is at the forefront for providing interoperability and support for
these environments, offering key functionality that specifically targets OpenStack,
VMware, and major cloud providers such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Customers moving to an evolved DevOps model in which Docker is a major
component recognize that the operational improvements that can be potentially
gained are dependent upon a platform that scales, is secure, highly available, and is
as agile as new workflows demand. F5 products and services are designed to work
with the broadest set of technologies and technology partners in the industry to
deliver on the promise of the Docker vision. F5’s commitment to Docker is backed
up by solid roadmap investments and continuous product improvement to ensure
the success for what will become one of the dominant deployment models for the
software-defined data center.
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F5 Networks, Inc.
401 Elliott Avenue West, Seattle, WA 98119
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