Latest Docker level available for Linux on z Systems

The Docker on z anchor page on developerWorks has been updated for the latest Docker binaries: version 1.9.1 is available now for Linux on z.
Please note you could run into issue 16256, at least we have seen some occurrences. A workaround for that is to start the daemon with the parameter "--exec-opt native.cgroupdriver=cgroupfs".

Fedora now comes with Docker

Earlier this month, Fedora 23 has been announced for z Systems. Note it comes with Docker packages (e.g. docker-1.7.0-22.gitdcff4e1.fc23.s390x.rpm in the download directory).

DockerCon EU

Should you be at DockerCon Europe 2015 in Barcelona, don't miss to stop by at the IBM booth. I will be there, too (for a cool 10,000 containers demo that the Linux on Power folks prepared, but if you start talking about z Systems, I will of course not stop the discussion).
See you there...

Another Base Image for Docker on z Systems: ClefOS

Neale Ferguson from Sine Nomine Associates has uploaded another base image: ClefOS. ClefOS is technically a CentOS port to z Systems, but since it is not a part of the CentOS organization, it's called ClefOS. The image is brunswickheads/clefos71-base-s390x (available tags listed here), so

docker pull brunswickheads/clefos71-base-s390x

will get you the image. It is yum-enabled, so you can easily install additional packages.

The user page https://hub.docker.com/u/brunswickheads/ provides a pile of nice images on top of ClefOS, so there is more software to play with... worth while checking out!

Docker 1.8.3 on developerWorks

The Linux on z Systems Docker page on developerWorks now carry links to new binaries -- version 1.8.3 is available for SLES 12 and RHEL 7.1.

docker-machine on z Systems

Recent posts have shown how to get compose, swarm, and the registry working. Of the prominent docker tools, the last one missing is docker-machine. machine is a tool that turns a Linux server into a Docker host. It can even create the server in the first place, e.g. in various public Cloud environments or through OpenStack. https://docs.docker.com/machine/ is the starting point of the documentation.

Let's see how docker-machine can be adapted for Linux on z Systems. Caution: long post.
We will use the generic driver which uses an existing Linux image as starting point, and uses its ssh access to make it a Docker host. First step -- let's setup the build environment for machine.

Container Patterns

Containers can be deployed in several ways, depending on goals and usage scenarios. Let's have a look at typical patterns and view this in light of z Systems: