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Microsoft Pushes Out Docker Windows Client

It comes the same week that Docker got a round of funding that may have made it a $1 billion company.

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• 04/17/2015

Docker continues to gain ascendance within Microsoft, as another day brings another announcement of new integration with the industry-leading container technology.

This time, it's the release of the Docker Client for Windows. The release of Microsoft's Docker command-line interface for Windows comes with Docker's updated container platform, dubbed Docker 1.6.

It comes after an active week for Docker, which on Tuesday received a huge equity investment of $95 million, which the company said it will use in part to further its collaborations with partners including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and IBM. Microsoft also just announced that Docker containers are coming to Hyper-V and for Windows Server.

"Docker Client for Windows can be used to manage Docker hosts running Linux containers today, and managing Windows Server Containers and Hyper-V Containers will be supported in the future to provide the same standard Docker Client and interface on multiple development environments," wrote Ahmet Alp Balkan, a software engineer for Azure Compute at Microsoft. Microsoft and Docker have collaborated to port the Docker Client to the Windows environment in Docker's open source project, which you can see on GitHub."

Balkan also noted that IT pros will be able to find Windows Server Container Images in the Docker Hub among the 45,000 Docker images for Linux already available, a figure he noted continues to grow. IT pros and developers can download the Docker Client for Windows via the Chocolatey package manager or they can install Boot2Docker, which creates a Docker development environment within a virtual machine, Balkan noted.

The new Docker 1.6 includes a new container and labels that let IT pros and developers attach user-defined metadata to containers and images within various tools, Docker said. Also the new Docker Registry and API, along with the Docker 1.6 Engine boasts improved reliability and performance.

Docker's updated Compose 1.2 tool, designed for running complex applications, reduces repeatable processes.  The release also includes the Swarm 0.2 clustering component, which the company said turns a pool of Docker hosts into one virtual host. The updated release includes a new spread strategy for scheduling containers, more Docker commands supported, the ability to add more clustering drivers and support for more Docker commands such as pulling and inspecting images.

Finally, Docker added Machine 0.2, which the company said has an improved driver interface, more reliable provisioning and the ability to regenerate TLS certificates to ensure better security when a host's IP address changes.