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Panamax Connects Docker Linux Containers Like Lego

CenturyLink has contributed the Panamax Docker management platform to open source. Panamax is described as a tool (its makers would prefer we said "platform") for developers to create, share, and deploy a Docker-containerized application.

As Langdon White wrote recently on Dr. Dobb's, containers provide a lightweight alternative to virtual machines and they enable developers to work with identical dev environments and stacks — they also facilitate DevOps by encouraging the use of stateless designs.

Docker, the Linux container manager that Panamax is based on, makes containers portable and sharable; it also allows developers to collaborate on infrastructure.

CenturyLink's Lucas Carlson says he likes the fact that with Docker, he can encapsulate the entire state of an application system and share it with anyone.

"We developed Panamax to make it even easier to use Docker. Panamax lets you combine Linux containers like Legos, stitching together the best-of-breed containers built by the DevOps community, and then deploy them anywhere," he said.

Prior to Panamax, running multi-container, multi-server apps with Docker was (more) difficult, claims the company.

Developers needed to learn as many as five new technologies — libswarm, systemd, etcd, ambassador, and fleet — as well as Docker-specific best practices just to get started.

Panamax packages these technologies so developers can drag-and-drop containers and access the open-source cloud application marketplace. Panamax can run on laptops, virtual machines, bare metal, or any public cloud that supports CoreOS.

"As one of the fastest growing open-source projects in history, Docker is going to change the game in application development," said James Governor, principal analyst at RedMonk, the developer-focused industry analyst firm. "Panamax is designed to be Docker management for humans, dramatically simplifying multi-container app deployment."

Panamax joins IronFoundry and ElasticLINQ as cloud-related open-source projects contributed by CenturyLink. Panamax is available today on GitHub under an Apache 2 license.

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