Docker Acquires Storage Startup Infinit

Of course, just after my Docker post, we get some interesting Docker news! It looks like Docker has acquired storage startup Infinit. If you’re never heard of Infinit, don’t worry, the name was new to me too. Looking at the announcement blog post, it’s clear the acquisition is aimed at clearing up one of Docker’s glaring deficiencies: storage.

Docker is saying they’re planning on using Infinit to deliver better storage out of the box. They want users to be able to integrate with legacy storage, as well as deploy stateful services without necessarily have to worry about using another product. It’s an interesting extension of the platform.

A couple of quick thoughts. In my exceedingly prescient piece (I’m also humble), I wrote that Docker was at a similar point to Twitter in the late aughts. Twitter decided to extend their service at the expense of companies who had previously brought that functionality externally. Docker has now made acquisitions to shore up their native networking and storage capabilities. A couple noticeable differences.

For one, Infinit looks to be in at least a pre-beta development phase. Docker did not exactly get an established solution in this acquisition, so there’s no telling what their final integration will look like, either from a usability or feature set perspective.

Secondly, their SocketPlane acquisition, while definitely needed, hasn’t dried up the market for Docker networking solutions, the same goes for Swarm. It’s clear Docker would rather have a healthy ecosystem of development around their product. From a purely mercenary perspective, it keeps the number of acquisition targets up. They’ve also already announced plans to open-source the whole project in 2017 as well.

Overall, this doesn’t appear to be a seismic shift for Docker. The company really doesn’t need that. It’ll take a while to see what this acquisition does to them, but it seems clear that Docker has a plan.