DockerCon EU 2017 - recap...

First of all

Mario & I where really excited going to DockerCon EU 2017 and didn’t know what was waiting for us. Monday started at about 04:00 AM by driving to Klagenfurt (Austria) and flying to Copenhagen via Vienna. After arriving at Copenhagen airport we managed to buy a metro/bus/train ticket so we could ride to our Hotel near the Bella Center. As we arrived at our Hotel we stored our luggage, connected our Laptops via WiFi and had a short look if everything was fine @work. I had some battery problems with my laptop the whole week (it always needs the power cable to startup) and also with my mobile phone lacking battery power, therefore I was forced to load my mobile via my laptop during the day… But everything went fine in the end and I had enough battery power to stay connected. :)

Arriving at Bella Center

Afterwards we went to the Bella Center to get registered and get our name badges. In our opinion the location was really big and some work was going on to finalize it for the public crowd. After registration we called an old friend of us to meet - Peter Rossbach. We met him and his team (Niclas Mietz,…) shortly after registration. It was nice to see them and we started to chat about what we were all waiting for. In the evening the welcome registration took place in the expo hall where we got our T-Shirts and also got a sneak peak of what was waiting for us the next days. And for me that was the start for collecting some Docker Pins… :) We also had some nice chats with Peter Rossbach & Niclas Mietz who we met before and also with Docker Captain Dieter Reuter we haven’t met before but knew he was working closely with Peter.

Day one - the keynote

The next day started with the first keynote. But wait, there also was a breakfast before that and yes, that breakfast definitively needs to be mentioned here. :-) I haven’t seen such a big conference with such a great catering during the whole week! Starting from the free coffee from the espresso coffee machines going further on to the really good meals/dishes throughout the whole conference. But what about the keynote? In my opinion the keynote started very well. The speakers gave an overview about the upcoming new features and what the whole keynote tenor (MTA, Modernizing Traditional Applications) was. The demos where a bit odd but funny to watch and the announcement that Kubernetes will get integrated into the Docker ecosystem beside the Docker Swarm was really interesting.

Day two - the keynote

The keynote of day two wasn’t that good in my opinion because the speakers focused too much on the tele prompter for their talks and so the talks dragged on at length… It felt that everyone in the audience was waiting for it to end to start another great day of more meaningful talks. Also, for me, the MetLife plot has been used too much - everything was just “MetLife”… I understand that this is a good partner for Docker to showcase what can be done but it’s not always about enterprise. Also revealing that IBM is getting another platinum partner with its bluemix so that the customer can now choose from some of the biggest IT companies to assist him in migrating to a Docker environment hasn’t been that announcement the audience was waiting for…

Mario’s tracks

Here comes a description of the tracks which I (Mario) attended including a short recap of them.

Play with Docker (PWD): Inside Out (Community Track)

That was the first track which I attended and it was a great one. Unfortunately there are no slides online but you can watch the video. The track was about the latest changes on the Play with Docker online application and for me, one of the highlights was, that there will be the possibility to use a direct attached ssh console to communicate with the PWD instance. Play with Docker (PWD): Inside Out

Learning Docker from Square One (Using Docker Track)

This one was held by Chloe Condon and as the topic states, it was a basic track about Docker. But it was a very cool track because Chloe is a great, fun and refreshing person. I really liked her art of presentation!

Experience the Swarm API in Virtual Reality (Community Track)

My second community track and it was a little bit a strange one but not a bad one. The speaker created a 3D virtual reality view of the Docker API! Interesting and unusual.

LinuxKit Deep Dive (Black Belt Track)

Wow, this was one of the heavy tracks. In 30 minutes the audience and I got a really taff and very interesting inside view of what happened to and with LinuxKit in the past 6 month. For me, this was great because with the additional information about the Kubernetes integration into Docker the steps made really made sense.

A Story of Cultural Change: PayPal’s 2 Year Journey to 150,000 Containers with Docker (Transform Track)

One of my personal favorites from the Docker Con EU 17! Why? I am not a pure technician, I have to organize a lot of management stuff too but of course I am also a visionary engineer. Therefore I really liked the talk from Meghdoot Bhattacharya about the transition from the classic virtual machine driven infrastructure to the (not perfect at this time) Docker container infrastructure. We never made it this way, because we already started with containers in 2006 (OpenVZ), and as such we are happy to have missed the interim stage of having hundreds or thousands of virtual machines to manage. For me it was a confirmation that we did it right in the past, we do it right in the present and probably we are going to do it the right way in the future.

Tuesday afternoon meeting with Michael Dielman (Docker Booth)

On Tuesday afternoon we had a short meeting with Michael Dielman who is the account executive of Docker for the DACH region. Michael is a really cool person and we had a great inspiring talk. During the meeting we came in contact with to other Docker employees as well, namely Andreas Lambrecht and Andreas Wilke - was nice to meet you guys! Together with Michael we discussed a lot of topics, including the Docker EE version and why we are currently not going to use the Docker EE version on-prem. He did not force us (our company) to switch from the Docker CE version to the Docker EE version, on the contrary he and his collegues were really interested in how me managed it on-prem. One question we were always facing with from nearly all people we met was, if we are using Docker and more specific Docker Swarm in the productive environment. Our answer was, of course yes, why not, followed by a longer explanation how we manage it.

Eureka! The Open Solution to Solving Storage Persistence (Ecosystem B Track)

This was a short talk about the progress of RexRay held by Chris Duchesne which was very interesting too because it addresses one of the main problems in the Docker ecosphere currently - persistent container storage. It was a impressive short talk but it was also very informative and we were able to get a lot of benefits and ideas out of it.

My Journey To Go (Transform Track)

The last track of the first day for me, held by Ashley McNamara and it was my favorite talk number two. The presentation of Ashley was very brisk and inspiring. Hopefully a lot of people will follow her to find a way to contribute and to come in touch with technology.

Tips and Tricks of the Docker Captains (Using Docker Track)

First track of Wednesday, presented by Adrian Mouat. Some of the tips we knew already but there was a bunch of new things inside the presentation for us. A very good and informative track.

Docker to the rescue of an Ops Team (Community Track)

Help by Rachid Zarouali, this was a classic transition track. Interesting insights on how they moved from the “old” fashioned deployment way to the much more modern CI/CD way. Too bad that they did not get further until today in terms of CI/CD, because managing configuration with Puppetmaster for Docker volume mounts is a little bit odd. But maybe, they haven’t finished it until today, so maybe we will hear from him the next time.

Practical Design Patterns in Docker Networking (Using Docker Track)

Another great talk and one of my favorites. Don Finneran gave a lot of information about Docker networking to the audience and yes, there were some things I did not recognize until this talk.

Gordon’s Secret Session: Kubernetes on Docker (Black Belt Track)

Brilliant! A huge talk about the Kubernetes integration on Docker. A lot of information and insights where given to the audience in a very short time.

Bernhard’s tracks

In the following you can read through my (Bernhard) recaps of the talks I attended.

Play with Docker (PWD): Inside Out (Community Track)

The first one I attended - the talk was really good and we got some insights on the future of PWD! The guys are really working hard on enhancing the features of PWD including a direct attachable SSH console, get rid of the ReCaptcha and also remove the 4 hours limit. Some really nice features for the next releases! It was a really good talk, watch it! Play with Docker (PWD): Inside Out

What’s New in Docker (Best Practices Track)

Nice talk from Vivek Saraswat getting some more detailed informations on the insights of the newest Docker features. For the Docker CE, which we use in production, Overlay2 over aufs as the new preferred filesystem & adding “–chown” to ADD/COPY in the Dockerfile where the highlights for me in this talk. What’s New in Docker

Experience the Swarm API in Virtual Reality (Community Track)

Some fancy talk about visualizing the Docker API so you can “walk” through it in virtual reality. Not that important for production use cases but fun to watch. Experience the Swarm API in Virtual Reality

Tales of Training: Scaling CodeLabs with Swarm Mode and Docker-Compose (Community Track)

The talk was about getting a robust training environment which is scalable, reproducible & simply usable by other trainers. Not that usable for us but nice to see what others implement with Docker. Tales of Training: Scaling CodeLabs with Swarm Mode and Docker-Compose

Docker?!?! But I’m a SysAdmin (Using Docker Track)

At the first step it’s all about what you specifically need, that sums up what this talk was all about. Ask yourself some questions to take the right decisions for your needs. The best part for me in this talk was that Mike Coleman offered to write him if you have something important to share with the Docker community! Thx for that, we’ll really come back to him! Docker?!?! But I’m a SysAdmin

Creating Effective Images (Using Docker Track)

Learning about what you can do by yourself to get simple & small container images which only have tools installed needed by the running application. Creating Effective Images

Tuesday afternoon meeting with Michael Dielman (Docker Booth)

For me it was really cool to meet Michael Dielman and some guys (Andreas Wilke) from Docker who work in europe and which you maybe can contact in the future if there is the need for it. I pretty much enjoyed the chat with Andreas Lambrecht at the after party because we had things in common in our IT history regarding the company branches and so he was understanding why we are working on the things like we do it today.

Eureka! The Open Solution to Solving Storage Persistence (Ecosystem Track)

Sad that whether the video nor the slides are online by now, hopefully they will be uploaded! It was a really great talk by Chris Duchesne getting some informations about RexRay and how persistent container storage could be implemented with it. We are looking forward testing this in our environment!

Back to the Future: Containerize Legacy Applications (Use Case Track)

Modernizing Traditional Applications (MTA) was the tenor of this DockerCon and this talk was about modernizing the infrastructure of your legacy application. After that use this new infrastructure to modernize the application itself by using the new and in any ways more flexible delivery methods to, in the end, deploy your application faster. For me the talk underlined what we are going through in our environment but for us without the tool set for “converting” the application stack to our Docker environment. I think this tool set will help people out there who won’t get into the details of Docker in the first step but have the need to make the step forward to a containerized world. Back to the Future: Containerize Legacy Applications

Tips and Tricks of the Docker Captains (Using Docker Track)

A good talk to start the second day. We got some tips and tricks around the docker environment. Some of them we already knew & some others we haven’t known already. Everyone using Docker should have a look at the video & slides, I think everyone can take something out of this cool talk by Adrian Mouat! Tips and Tricks of the Docker Captains

Empowering Docker with Linked Data Principles (Community Track)

Running your applications in the Docker environment gives you masses of metadata around your running application stack. So what if you want to search for some metadata some of your applications have in common? Semantic data maybe is the key. Really nice talk about what you maybe will need in the future… Empowering Docker with Linked Data Principles

Monitoring Containers: Follow the Data (Ecosystem Track)

Hmm, what should I say. I expected a more technical talk about monitoring containers in a Docker environment rather than a business talk about Datadog…

Container Orchestration from Theory to Practice (Black Belt Track)

Cool talk from Stephen Day & Laura Frank about the insights of Docker SwarmKit. Everyone who wants to know some insights, have a look at the video! Container Orchestration from Theory to Practice

Docker to the Rescue of an Ops Team (Community Track)

A talk about the transition to Docker with CI/CD but as Mario wrote above to this talk, I also don’t understand why they use Puppet rather than migrating the whole thing to more CI/CD including configurations… We also use Puppet for our Docker hosts (and of course our non Docker environments) but no further. Maybe we will see more from him in one of the future DockerCon’s tracks. Would be interesting to see their further development. Docker to the Rescue of an Ops Team

Taking Docker to Production: What You Need to Know and Decide (Using Docker Track)

Cool, what a talk to end DockerCon day two. I’m also a gaming kid of the 80’s/90’s, so following that talk by Bret Fisher was really cool. Not only because of the games but that gave the talk an ease following and concentrating at the end of the day! Summing up the talk I would say “start using docker” the simplest way you are comfortable with, don’t start using Docker and make CI/CD a show stoping requirement and also don’t start with a persistent application like a database container. So, really cool talk, have a look at it, you won’t regret it! Taking Docker to Production: What You Need to Know and Decide

Bernhard’s track summary

In this short summary I want to outline four of the tracks I attended because they gave really much information which we will be needing and using in our environment. Favorite Nr 1 -> Mike Coleman - Docker?!?! But I’m a SysAdmin Favorite Nr 2 -> Chris Duchesne - Eureka! The Open Solution to Solving Storage Persistence (Ecosystem Track) Favorite Nr 3 -> Adrian Mouat - Tips and Tricks of the Docker Captains Favorite Nr 4 -> Bret Fisher - Taking Docker to Production: What You Need to Know and Decide

DockerCon party

Shuttle service via busses to the DockerCon “after day one” party. Really cool that we hadn’t to look at metro/bus/train plans to find our way to the after party. Everything was organized that everyone is feeling comfortable by making a shuttle service which brought us to the after party and back to the Bella Center after the after party. ;) Arriving there we went into that old train workshop hall where everyone could drop his/her jackets/backpack so that you could fully enjoy the party! Everything was organized - drinks, meals/dishes, music, arcade games, life sized Asteroids and Bricks & Pong where you could challenge others. I think most of the DockerCon attendees where at the party and enjoyed that evening. There was enough time to meet new people you have already met the first day but also to meet new people and chat with them about their journey to Docker in their environments. It was a really cool and great organized event and I hope that this wasn’t the last one we’ll attend in the future.

Moby summit

The last day (for us) at DockerCon started a bit bad for me because I forgot to select the “Join Moby Summit” radio button some weeks before the DockerCon so I thought I wouldn’t be able to attend the summit at that day. Mario and I went to the Bella Center and to the breakfast and Mario got into the summit because he checked that early enough before DockerCon. So i went to the open place outside the Expo area and had a look for a free desk including a power line plug to get my laptop started, you know, my battery problems… So after a while sitting there and trying some things out with Portainer, reading a bit through the RexRay documentation and Portus installation a woman came out of the Expo area and said that there are some free places at the Moby summit. Yes, I thought, and after that I found myself fumbling my equipment back in my backpack in a hurry and literally running to the Moby summit, where Mario was already sitting with a free chair beside him. So I also had the opportunity to listen to the talks from about 09:45. There where some interesting talks about Moby itself, InfraKit & LinuxKit. After that we unfortunately had to leave to get to our flight back to Austria… A good end for the DockerCon EU 2017!