Docker products
In the past, up until 2019, Docker separated its product lines into two segments. There was the Community Edition (CE), which was closed source yet completely free, and then there was the Enterprise Edition (EE), which was also closed source and needed to be licensed yearly. These enterprise products were backed by 24/7 support and were supported by bug fixes.
In 2019, Docker felt that what they had were two very distinct and different businesses. Consequently, they split away the EE and sold it to Mirantis. Docker itself wanted to refocus on developers and provide them with the optimal tools and support to build containerized applications.
Docker Desktop
Part of the Docker offering are products such as Docker Toolbox and Docker Desktop with its editions for Mac, Windows, and Linux. All these products are mainly targeted at developers. Docker Desktop is an easy-to-install desktop application that can be used to build, debug, and test dockerized applications or services on a macOS, Windows, or Linux machine. Docker Desktop is a complete development environment that is deeply integrated with the hypervisor framework, network, and filesystem of the respective underlying operating system. These tools are the fastest and most reliable ways to run Docker on a Mac, Windows, or Linux machine.
Note
Docker Toolbox has been deprecated and is no longer in active development. Docker recommends using Docker Desktop instead.
Docker Hub
Docker Hub is the most popular service for finding and sharing container images. It is possible to create individual, user-specific accounts and organizational accounts under which Docker images can be uploaded and shared inside a team, an organization, or with the wider public. Public accounts are free while private accounts require one of several commercial licenses. Later in this book, we will use Docker Hub to download existing Docker images and upload and share our own custom Docker images.
Docker Enterprise Edition
Docker EE – now owned by Mirantis – consists of the Universal Control Plane (UCP) and the Docker Trusted Registry (DTR), both of which run on top of Docker Swarm. Both are Swarm applications. Docker EE builds on top of the upstream components of the Moby project and adds enterprise-grade features such as role-based access control (RBAC), multi-tenancy, mixed clusters of Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, a web-based UI, and content trust, as well as image scanning on top.
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarm provides a powerful and flexible platform for deploying and managing containers in a production environment. It provides the tools and features you need to build, deploy, and manage your applications with ease and confidence.
