It's Time to Migrate from Docker Swarm to Kubernetes

by David Widen | Tuesday, Dec 10, 2019 | Education

Is Docker Swarm Dead?

Docker Swarm is a built-in container orchestration technology that many enterprise organizations leverage to deploy their containers to production. As a container orchestrator, it is easy to use and provides production-ready capabilities.

However, following the Mirantis acquisition of Docker Enterprise, a two-year timer has started for all Swarm deployments. Mirantis has stated they will support Docker Swarm for the next two years; however, continued support is uncertain at this time.

This means that the already slowing development on Docker Swarm will come to a halt and Swarm will become a dead platform. The time to migrate to Kubernetes is now.

For current enterprise users of Docker Swarm, two years is not a lot of time to re-architect applications. Even if your scale is smaller, performing a seamless migration is a challenging prospect for experienced teams.

BoxBoat is committed to helping current Docker Swarm users migrate applications to Kubernetes through the following key areas:

Strategy and Planning

Deploying applications via Docker containers requires an organization that is agile and open to new technology. For current Docker Swarm customers, you have already instituted many organizational changes and processes to maximize the benefits of container technology for your business. Kubernetes is a more fully-featured product when compared to Docker Swarm. This enables new workflows and paradigms that can improve your business even more.

BoxBoat will analyze your current usage of Docker Swarm, help determine key areas where Kubernetes can provide additional benefit, and plan organizational changes to adopt these new paradigms.

Currently, Docker Enterprise is the only platform that supports Docker Swarm. As you migrate to Kubernetes, there are many different options for enterprise Kubernetes platforms to choose from. It might make sense to stick with Kubernetes on Docker Enterprise. We can also examine other platforms, including:

• Rancher
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Elastic Kubernetes Service
• Google Kubernetes Engine
• OpenShift
• Pivotal Kubernetes Service

Whether your Kubernetes clusters are on-premise, in the cloud, at the edge, or deployed in a hybrid model, we can help find the most effective platform to host your containerized applications that meets your organizational requirements, and develop a strategy for a smooth transition.

Implementation

Our team of experienced engineers works with Kubernetes in production on a daily basis. Our diverse team holds many certifications, including the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), Docker Certified Associate (DCA), and cloud architect certifications from all major cloud vendors including AWS, Azure, and Google. We've also supported many different on-premise and air-gapped environments as well.

Our engineers have the skills and experience to not only migrate your current applications from Docker Swarm to Kubernetes, but also optimize your architecture to leverage new features in Kubernetes that are not present or difficult to implement in Docker Swarm. We've worked with many organizations in several industries, including finance, government, research, higher education, publishing, advanced products, and healthcare.

Enablement and Training

We currently offer several Kubernetes training courses that can get your team up and running as quickly as possible. We can provide beginner, intermediate, and advanced Kubernetes training to your team, in addition to showcasing reference architectures and advanced cluster operations and management.

BoxBoat training is offered in-person and remotely. Our training sessions are lead by engineers who work with the technology on a daily basis, in lieu of dedicated trainers. In addition, if we implement Kubernetes for you, we will train your team on your custom implementation so they can take operational control as quickly as possible.

Support

Supporting Kubernetes applications is more challenging than Docker Swarm. Kubernetes provides a more flexible architecture, at the cost of increased complexity. We can provide 24/7/365 support for Kubernetes clusters. We also offer a fully managed Kubernetes platform on-premise and in the cloud. Your developers are free to continue developing code while we build the automation to deploy to production and maintain your cluster uptime.

To learn more about how we can help migrate your applications from Docker Swarm to Kubernetes, contact us or send an email to info@boxboat.com.

BoxBoat Technologies is an authorized CNCF Kubernetes Solutions Partner, CNCF Kubernetes Training Partner, Rancher Platinum Partner, Preferred Azure Kubernetes Service Partner, and Docker Premier Partner. BoxBoat offers services to accelerate enterprise adoption of modern DevOps tool chains, container technologies, and cloud solutions.