IBM Z images on Docker Store

As mentioned in a previous post, an increasing number of Docker "official images" include s390x binaries. This is now also marked accordingly on Docker Store. If you search for containers, there is an "IBM Z" checkbox. Activating it filters for s390x images.

Docker Official Images Go Multi-Arch

Starting today, all Docker official images (on Docker Hub and soon easily identifiable on Docker Store) are multi-arch images. Official images are credibly curated images that are maintained by Docker, the Docker community or the projects behind individual images.

That does not mean that all these images are available for s390x yet, but the infrastructure is in place to several architectures into official images, i.e. all official images are manifest lists. An earlier post explained multi-arch images and how to use it.

At this time, quite some official images are not just multi-arch enabled, but also carry s390x binaries.

First CE for s390x by Docker

Today, Docker CE v17.06 has been released. It offers a series of enhancements as laid out in their announcement blog post. However, there is one more thing: the release comes with s390x binaries. Out of the three major enterprise distributions supported on the mainframe, Docker offers CE for Ubuntu. Particularly, Docker CE is not provided for SLES and RHEL (on any platform). Accordingly, binaries are available for Ubuntu for IBM z Systems.
(Note: See the next post if your distribution of choice happens to be something else than Ubuntu.)