My company uses a third party piece of software that is based on Docker.
We are using a RedHat server and the software suppler states that only Docker EE is supported by the software on this platform.
On Windows ‘Docker EE’ is included in the Windows license thanks to a collaboration between MS and Docker, is therefore free to use and can be downloaded via Powershell from MS repositories. On RHEL it would appear you have to manually download Docker EE from the Docker website but when I try I am asked to purchase a copy.
We do not want to develop Docker systems or use Docker for development - we just want to use it as a base to run our third-party software
Can someone direct me to an Docker statement / web page that clarifies if a purchase is necessary just to run other software ?
Well Docker EE is Docker Enterprise Edition which you have to purchase a license.
If you want to use the free one you have to download Docker CE is Docker Community Edition
More Info is here: https://www.docker.com/products/docker-engine
The container of the 3rd part suppliers image will run on Docker EE or CE in the same way. Most times not supported does not necessarily mean it will not run!
Well the supplier is right: there is no Docker-CE for RHEL. RHEL only supports Docker-EE, which makes it necessary to pay for subscriptios.This is a contraint from Docker Inc. and not your 3rd party supplier.
Technicaly it is possible to trick the CentOS Docker-CE installer to work on RHEL as well - though, it would be an ill advice to actualy use it.
You should ask the supplier, if the support is realy restricted to RHEL and Docker-EE.
If no constraint of your company or the 3ry party suppliers support requirements prevent using CentOS or Ubunutu, those would be your options to run an official Docker-CE package from Docker Inc…
Yes I understand that just because it is not supported on CE it does not mean it will not run on CE. I just wanted to clarify my understanding that to use Docker EE (rather than develop with it) would still require us to pay for a subscription.
It was a little confusing since I understood that one way to obtain Docker EE was from the RHEL repositories which, if we have paid for a copy of RHEL, may suggest that you could use Docker EE without cost whereas trying to download from Docker obviously hits a paw-wall.
You are right, I did forget that RHEL provides a self maintained version of Docker 1.13 (pre EE/CE era) which is covered by the RHEL support. i am uncertain if the RHEL package is a untouched vanilla version of Docker 1.13. With RHEL it’s high likely they made some optimizations on their package. Though, it might be sufficient for your needs.
For instance, I run two RHEL Docker 1.13 hosts with nginx containers as loadbalancers, they implement SNI + tcp-passthrough and forward encrypted traffic to specific nodes on the backend Docker cluster depending on the subdomain used for access. The backend is a full Docker EE stack with UCP/DTR and a bunch of worker nodes. Btw. subscriptions starts with a minimum of 10 nodes (It used to be 5 nodes earlier).