Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dotcloud becoming Docker

blog.docker.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 74 posts

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#11

Post by keeblus »

jxf wrote: post #9

As a user of Docker, I'm excited. But as someone who uses the dotCloud PaaS right now to run a company, I'm a little annoyed, mostly at myself for not seeing this coming. Clearly there's a diversion of resources away from the dotCloud PaaS to Docker, and that's going to have a toll somewhere. Despite the company's reassurances that everything is business as usual, I know that Docker [the project] is just too much of…

Maybe hold tight and migrate to one of the many Docker-friendly/based PaaS that are booting up.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#12

Post by jxf »

keeblus wrote: post #11
jxf wrote: post #9

As a user of Docker, I'm excited. But as someone who uses the dotCloud PaaS right now to run a company, I'm a little annoyed, mostly at myself for not seeing this coming. Clearly there's a diversion of resources away from the dotCloud PaaS to Docker, and that's going to have a toll somewhere. Despite the company's reassurances that everything is business as usual, I know that Docker [the project] is just too much of…

Maybe hold tight and migrate to one of the many Docker-friendly/based PaaS that are booting up.

That's my current light at the end of the tunnel, but for now none of them seem mature enough to put my customers on. And it seems like there's a new one every week!

I imagine it'll be easy-ish to migrate between Docker-based PaaS's, though; just upload the container and change the provider-specific config, right? So that's a little reassuring.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#13

Post by Touche »

It's really interesting how Docker has become this beast, but was originally developed as a practical way to run their business. How many companies have been formed this way?

It's an great thing to point to when a startup doesn't want to invest any time into getting their fundamental product right and just want to hack together using existing and known technologies.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#14

Post by kmfrk »

jxf wrote: post #9

As a user of Docker, I'm excited. But as someone who uses the dotCloud PaaS right now to run a company, I'm a little annoyed, mostly at myself for not seeing this coming. Clearly there's a diversion of resources away from the dotCloud PaaS to Docker, and that's going to have a toll somewhere. Despite the company's reassurances that everything is business as usual, I know that Docker [the project] is just too much of…

I think the shifting nature of PaaS is something inherent to the market and ecosystem, and something that should be taken into account as such.

I struggle to find a PaaS as well, but I think we should have an appreciation of what the market is like, and what it takes to stand out and carve out a business for yourself these days.

Marco's thoughts on web hosting are probably still relevant on the subject of PaaS: http://www.marco.org/2013/10/15/godaddy-mt.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#15

Post by ARothfusz »

jxf wrote: post #9

As a user of Docker, I'm excited. But as someone who uses the dotCloud PaaS right now to run a company, I'm a little annoyed, mostly at myself for not seeing this coming. Clearly there's a diversion of resources away from the dotCloud PaaS to Docker, and that's going to have a toll somewhere. Despite the company's reassurances that everything is business as usual, I know that Docker [the project] is just too much of…

There's no need to make a hasty decision -- we haven't changed the platform in any way or lowered our support efforts. If you've found that you can count on the dotCloud PaaS for your business (and thank you for that!), then nothing changed today. We're still here for you.

If you feel like you want to get ready for running on another platform, or using Docker as it matures, then I'd suggest the first step would be to move your databases to a neutral third party provider. With that in place, you can still run your code on the dotCloud PaaS, or anywhere else. As Docker and the ecosystem around it mature, there will be many more options.

I work for Docker Inc on the dotCloud PaaS and manage the support. If you have more private questions, you can reach us at support@dotcloud.com

/Andy

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#16

Post by bmelton »

jbellis wrote: post #7
programminggeek wrote: post #3

This is a smart move. Some people might call it a pivot, but I think it's really doubling down on what people really want. dotCloud is not going to change the world (or make a truckload of money) by being Heroku's also-ran. Instead, they are taking something they built that is really interesting to a lot of people and building a business around it. As someone who is quite interested in docker, I'm glad that they are…

I was with you until the last sentence. Why would it be irresponsible to kill the Heroku also-ran to push faster on what people really want?

Because there are people running businesses on dotCloud currently?

Because, at least in my humble opinion, it's actually better than Heroku?

Because, at a minimum, cutting it off at the knees would engender tons and tons of bad will amongst their current customers?

Because the customers deserve a couple of 'writing on the wall' style posts like this to begin thinking about migrating to alternatives before the cutoff is actually announced, forcing their hand in what could be 'too short a time period' to get migrated?

The more time they buy their existing customers before dismantling what works, and what people are paying them for, the better.

That said, this is the 'writing on the wall' that people should be looking for alternatives, at the barest minimum.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#17

Post by bmelton »

Touche wrote: post #13

It's really interesting how Docker has become this beast, but was originally developed as a practical way to run their business. How many companies have been formed this way? It's an great thing to point to when a startup doesn't want to invest any time into getting their fundamental product right and just want to hack together using existing and known technologies.

Ironically enough, in this case, Solomon originally started dotCloud as a tool to help manage server images, which he then leveraged into a business based on the tool, which now seems to be transitioning back to the tool itself as the core.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#18

Post by gabrtv »

jxf wrote: post #9

As a user of Docker, I'm excited. But as someone who uses the dotCloud PaaS right now to run a company, I'm a little annoyed, mostly at myself for not seeing this coming. Clearly there's a diversion of resources away from the dotCloud PaaS to Docker, and that's going to have a toll somewhere. Despite the company's reassurances that everything is business as usual, I know that Docker [the project] is just too much of…

Gabriel Monroy here, creator of Deis, one of the Docker PaaS's (http://deis.io/overview/). I'd love to pick your brain about your current dilemma and see if we can help. Email me: gabriel _at_ opdemand.com.

Re: Dotcloud becoming Docker

#19

Post by jxf »

ARothfusz wrote: post #15
jxf wrote: post #9

As a user of Docker, I'm excited. But as someone who uses the dotCloud PaaS right now to run a company, I'm a little annoyed, mostly at myself for not seeing this coming. Clearly there's a diversion of resources away from the dotCloud PaaS to Docker, and that's going to have a toll somewhere. Despite the company's reassurances that everything is business as usual, I know that Docker [the project] is just too much of…

There's no need to make a hasty decision -- we haven't changed the platform in any way or lowered our support efforts. If you've found that you can count on the dotCloud PaaS for your business (and thank you for that!), then nothing changed today. We're still here for you. If you feel like you want to get ready for running on another platform, or using Docker as it matures, then I'd suggest the first step would be to…

Thanks for the reassurance, Andy. We've chatted a couple of times in IRC and you've always been awesome in my complicated support requests.

Still, my concern isn't about the quality of the dotCloud PaaS going down -- it's pretty high already, and I don't have any plans to move immediately.

Instead, I'm more concerned about the shift in general. You know as well as anyone that software that doesn't get love and care eventually rots, and the blog post explicitly says that the focus is now on Docker and away from the PaaS.

From that, I infer that the PaaS is eventually going to have to go away as is the natural order of things. Since my company depends critically on that piece of infrastructure, I need to make sure I'm covering my bases with an exit strategy if you do decide to turn out the lights on the PaaS, or at least make sure I've thought about what to do as an alternative.

I also hope you guys make a bajillion dollars on Docker. It's really an excellent idea whose time has come.

Post reply on HN