Slim.AI, the Boston-based startup focused on helping developers build secure, optimized containers faster, announced the availability of the Slim.AI Docker Desktop Extension at DockerCon today.
With Docker Extensions, more than 12 million developers using Docker Desktop can now add Slim.AI functionality to their workstreams. Slim.AI provides developers with the necessary tools to ship secure, production-ready containers in an automated, repeatable and transparent way, and without the need for specialized expertise. Read more here: Docker Extensions: Discover, Build & Integrate New Tools into Docker Desktop, and find details on how to try the extension in the latest Slim.AI blog.
"Our DockerSlim open source project brought advanced container analysis, automated container optimization and reduced attack surfaces to Docker containers and, more importantly, developers everywhere," said John Amaral, CEO, and co-founder of Slim.AI. "We're excited to bring that functionality to the Docker Desktop through our Docker Extension and power up millions of developers. Knowing your software is a key building block to creating secure, small, production-ready containers and reducing software supply chain risk."
With the Slim.AI Docker Extension, developers can easily evaluate their containers from the inside out, understand ways to optimize container composition and make changes to control these risks. Developers can also automate the work of optimizing and securing containers through CI/CD and multiple registry integrations using the Slim SaaS Platform.
"Docker is obsessed with developer ergonomics and is committed to filling and improving the developer experience gap," said Webb Stevens, Docker's SVP of secure software supply chain. "We welcome the Slim.AI Docker Desktop Extension, which will expand the applications and capabilities available for millions of registered Docker developers."
Matias Elgart, VP of platform engineering at PaymentWorks, a digital supplier onboarding platform for secure, compliant and optimized business payments, and a Slim.AI partner, said, "The diff view in the Slim Docker Extension is exactly the kind of view we'd see in a GitHub PR and is critical for understanding what's changed in a container. Adding this capability to our local development workflow will speed up onboarding and reduce errors downstream. We've already used it to remove cruft from our containers and make them more secure."
Slim.AI and Docker "Go Way Back"
Slim.AI traces its roots to a Docker Global Hack Day hackathon in 2015. At that hackathon, Kyle Quest (now Slim.AI co-founder and CTO) won 1st place in the Seattle event and 2nd place globally in the "plumbing" category with his creation, DockerSlim. DockerSlim—which helps developers shrink their container images by removing unnecessary components and thereby create smaller, faster and more secure containers—quickly evolved into a popular open source project and is now the foundational technology of Slim.AI.
Co-founded by Quest and Amaral in January 2021, Slim.AI is focused on delivering a cloud-native application development platform atop DockerSlim to help developers create, build, deploy and run their cloud-native applications more efficiently and securely. The unique approach used by Slim.AI moves the focus on container optimization upstream in the DevOps lifecycle, giving developers the tools they need to author, manage and ship production-ready containers efficiently and effectively. Slim.AI has achieved strong traction through its open source, early access SaaS platform and initial engagements with organizations looking to modernize and secure their cloud-native workflows.
Visit Slim.AI at DockerCon
Slim.AI is a Platinum Sponsor of DockerCon and will be offering a Platinum Partner Session—Creating Production-Ready Containers: What Developers Need to Know to Secure Their Containers—at 2:30pm EDT on May 10 in the #Discover track. Evan Harris of the Slim.AI technical team will demystify what is necessary to make a container "production ready" and share common best practices for securing and hardening containers.
Additionally, Elgart of PaymentWorks, an avid user of the Slim.AI "Collections" feature, will give a presentation on his team's use of the Slim CLI to generate Docker Compose files at each build. The Slim.AI Docker Extension will allow PaymentWorks' developers to make local comparisons between versions of their containerized microservices, complimenting the Slim Cloud capabilities that provide better onboarding and tracking of their containers as they move through CI/CD and to AWS.
Additional ways to connect with Slim.AI at DockerCon: