Docker ties up to Mulesoft to kick aging apps into shape

Docker ties up to Mulesoft to kick aging apps into shape

Docker has made another grab at aging enterprise applications through a tie-up with Salesforce subsidiary Mulesoft, which also sees the CRM giant take a stake in the container pioneer.

The companies say the partnership will make it easier for companies with legacy applications to containerize them and move to a hybrid cloud architecture.

In a blog post, Docker technical staffer Patrick Chanezon said traditional apps with APIs can be containerzied using Docker Enterprise, with the business logic and data being extended to new applications through MuleSoft’s API gateway and AnyPoint platform.

The two will also provide resources to containerize legacy apps without APIs, while new apps created in Docker will be “accessible and discoverable from AnyPoint Platform”.

More broadly, customers will also be able to improve overall security, manageability and observability through using Docker Enterprise to manage container workloads, and AnyPoint to run and manage the application network, Chanezon wrote.

The partnership comes a week after Docker pledged to extend the life of aged applications running on Windows Server 2003 and 2008, despite Microsoft support for the former ending three years ago, and support for the latter due to end in 2020.

The press release for the partnership also said Salesforce Ventures is making an investment in Docker, which apparently should boost the latter’s ability to help organisations digitally transform AND create greater alignment with Mulesoft.

It turns out that Salesforce was one of the participants in a funding round last month that raised $92m for Docker. With 31 participants altogether, it’s hard to say if Salesforce’s stake is seriously strategic – from Docker’s point of view at least – or just a sweetener.

Either way, it is enough to set tongues wagging given the wave of takeovers and investments in the enterprise software market over the last few weeks, from IBM’s $34bn bid for Red Hat, VMWare’s hoovering up of Heptio, and SAP’s $8bn buy of Qualtrics this week.