DockerCon 2021: Docker Shifts Focus To Teams, Trusted Content

Docker, which popularized the notion of containers as a way of partitioning or isolating resource usage in computing, has been a company in transition. After selling its enterprise line-up to Mirantis in 2019, the question was, "What does Docker do now?" The recent DockerCon 2021 provided an answer through its keynote: Provide trusted content and services that boost a development team's performance.

CEO Scott Johnston opened the keynote to the all-online DockerCon 2021 event by saying, "The power of teams is why we've made teams central to Docker's mission," then stressed three areas in which Docker will be supporting teamwork: by offering a repository of trusted content, by boosting its tools for remote collaboration, and by turning more attention to ecosystem integrations. To that last point, the company is doubling down on partnerships with other tech companies in order to let developers build applications and workflows across multiple tech ecosystems via Docker's code libraries.

"We'll be providing more public APIs and integrations," Johnston said. Docker has just added both Mirantis and AWS to its list of registry partners, and it announced the launch of the Docker Verified Publishing Program, which will allow developers to access content distributed by more than 100 companies. 

“We are thrilled to announce the Docker Verified Publisher Program’s availability to even more publishers and the distribution of Docker Official Images to even more developers through even more registries,” said Docker CEO Scott Johnston. “This greatly expands choice for developers to complement Docker Official Images and solidifies the Docker platform and Docker Hub as the de facto standard for trusted, secure container images.”  

The benefit to the Docker Verified Publisher Program is the reassurance that the company has tested their partners' offerings and is willing to vouch for the quality of the Docker Image, i.e. the application code, libraries, tools, dependencies and other files needed to make an application run. Docker currently has 10.9 million Docker Images in all its repositories.

During the DockerCon 2021 keynote, Johnston stressed the role Docker is playing to provide its 8.1 million registered Docker developers. With Docker Official Images, a dedicated team reviews and publishes all content in the Official Images to ensure the curated repositories are secure. Docker is also throwing its weight behind multiple open source projects, saying it's dedicated to supporting communities producing trusted content.