According to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4035670/support-policy-for-containers the only supported orchestrator for docker for on prem environment is Azure Service Fabric. Swarm is only supported by Microsoft when being run in Azure via ACS.
Earlier in that article, they mention that
For containers that are running on physical infrastructure/servers, Microsoft supports instances of Windows Server Containers on Windows Server 2016. For more information, see Docker Engine on Windows.
There are more nuances throughout the length of the article.
Yes they do support actual containers but not orchestrators. There is specifically a section in that article devoted to support of container orchestrators. Per that article they only support deployment of orchestrators and not even operations in ACS. And on prem they don’t support any at all except for Service Fabric.
Docker EE for Windows 2016 is “free” since it is included with the cost of the Windows 2016 license. Does this mean that Docker Inc. supports Docker Swarm as part of this Docker EE license?
Docker representative is working currently in background trying to clarify this with Microsoft since per docker Microsoft shall support entire lifecycle of docker runtime including orchestration. So something amiss here since Microsoft essentially said they don’t support any orchestrators at all regardless where they run except for Service Fabric.
Thanks for the update. Now I haven’t actually tried…is Docker Swarm working from a technical perspective on Windows 2016? Is its functionality on par with Linux? (Overlay networking, etc.).
Yes, everything is working along with overlay. In fact I run it in production for a year now. Just sometimes nodes fall off swarm on it’s own and I got tired of re-adding them back and opened a case with Microsoft to fix it. After 3 weeks wait they send me back a nastigramm telling that they don’t support it.