Communications of the ACM
The Man Who Would Build a Computer the Size of the Entire Internet
Solomon Hykes' Docker open source software project provides a standard method of moving software applications from one machine to another.
Credit: Alex Washburn/Wired
Solomon Hykes has started an open source software project called Docker that aims to use the Internet as one enormous computer, providing a standard method of moving software applications from one machine to another.
Docker packages software applications into their own shipping containers, so they can load and run on any machine running the Linux operating system. Software in Docker containers can spread across the machines in a user's own data centers, onto popular cloud services, and back again.
Although Docker is only a few months old, it has garnered attention from major Silicon Valley firms, because it takes proven technologies and repackages them for easier use. Docker divides software into cells of code, and a Docker container holds everything the application needs to run, including software libraries and other application-related code. Docker applications do not depend heavily on operating system code, with the operating system mainly offering hooks into the Docker containers. The result is a computer or group of computers that function like an organism, in which cells operate independently as well as cooperatively.
Hykes says the software has been downloaded 60,000 times in the five months that it has been available, and 80,000 people are visiting the project's website monthly.
From Wired News
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