Solace and Docker: Multi-Cloud Messaging Containers

Editor’s Note: The VMR (Virtual Message Router) mentioned in this post is now Solace PubSub+.

From the dawn of (software) time, developers have been searching for the solution to software portability. The challenge of managing dependencies, from versioning to network topology to storage in a world of public and private clouds and legacy datacenters is mind-boggling. However, with the advent and acceptance of application containers, the world is closer to a solution that allows apps to be easily moved from one environment to another.

Today’s environments aren’t just a single staging ground or single deployment space. Increasingly, the production solution crosses multiple systems, clouds and datacenters. Sharing messages and data across those multiple environments is also challenging, which is why Solace has embraced open data movement.

That’s why we’re excited to announce today that our Solace Virtual Message Router (VMR) is now available as a Docker image. With this, the VMR can now run in Docker environments with other dockerized apps to combine the benefits of containers with those of the leading open data movement technology.

Since Solace is the leading proponent of hybrid cloud solutions, the Docker version of the VMR makes perfect sense. Given its portable nature, the container can run virtually anywhere, reducing the risk of running into dependency mismatches when you run a given app in different environments. Our commitment to providing world class messaging and open data movement on all the popular clouds means this VMR package lets developers easily move and deliver not only their apps, but the messaging environment tying them together. Our goal is to make sure your messaging doesn’t suffer from cloud lock-in, providing total portability with open standard protocols and open APIs. It’s a promise that Docker certainly helps us meet.

We’ve focused our early testing on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. In fact our cloud aces have already built “click to deploy” templates that make it super easy to deploy our VMR into those environments, which you can check out in Solace Labs. Beyond that, be sure to watch this space as we’ll be expanding our testing to other clouds over the next few months.

We’ll also continue to improve and extend our Docker support with features like orchestration, network integration and DevOps.

Our commitment to Docker aligns with our commitment to open data movement. Learn more about the new dockerized VMR on the Solace developer portal.