Quay.io Blog Quay container registry by CoreOS celebrates two years

Today we celebrate two illustrious years of Quay at CoreOS. Quay, the secure container registry, enables developers and DevOps to build, distribute and deploy their Docker and rkt containers.A look back at the container registry of choiceWe launched Quay soon after the emergence of the Docker ecosystem.In using containers to develop our own applications and provide isolated environments for our existing customers, we found there were no tools available to store or manage our private container images. As a result, we decided to build a container repository ourselves.Our team of two started the initial implementation of Quay on September 20, 2013, resulting in a working prototype. Building on our proof of concept, we continued to develop and formally released the first version of Quay on October 3, 2013. We made our grand announcement at the Docker Meetup in New York City that evening, where we, fortuitously, also met Alex Polvi, CEO of a then-new startup called CoreOS. This chance meeting established a strong professional relationship, one which would eventually see Quay become part of the CoreOS family."Secure hosting for private Docker containers" was our original slogan. To continue the shipping analogy associated with containers, we decided to name the product "Quay," as a quay is the part of the pier where containers are stored while being unloaded from a ship. Likewise, Quay is the platform from which you can build, store, and manage your software containers.Our initial features included setting up permissions, and creating and deleting the repository. As our initial customer base grew rapidly, it became clear we were meeting a market need. Since we were providing such a needed service, our early customers spread the word and drove rapidly expanding adoption. Quay became our main focus, and over the next few months we designed a stronger UI and added build support, robot accounts, and organizations to provide a more robust container management experience.Quay was a popular tool in the container community at this time, but there was also a need for an enterprise-level product. As a result, we started working on Quay Enterprise in early April 2014, simultaneously expanding Quay's features, while working to ensure a shared consistent, code base between our hosted product and our budding enterprise solution.During this time, primarily through our continued relationship with Alex Polvi, we realized we had a growing symbiotic relationship with CoreOS. Quay Enterprise customers were deploying their containers on CoreOS because they wanted to run their containers on a trusted OS, and CoreOS provided the security, features, and performance they were looking for. CoreOS customers, in turn, needed a container registry to manage their images: it was a great match.Realizing the benefits to our customers, in August of 2014, Quay joined the CoreOS family and we've been growing the product ever since.Quay and Quay Enterprise by CoreOS todayIn the last two years, we've continued to build Quay as the premier container registry. Customers are choosing Quay and Quay Enterprise for its advanced functionality and features:Quay security scanning with Clair scans your container images layer by layer to inform you of any known vulnerabilities and notifies you if your images are susceptible to a newly discovered exploitGeoreplication provides the peace of mind that your content across the globe is consistent and highly availableFine-grained Access Control Lists and audit logging ensure that you can control and audit who is reading and writing your imagesMultiple means of distribution, from squashed images to torrent distribution, make it faster and easier to deploy container-based applicationsQuay's automated garbage collection ensures you're always using resources efficiently for active objects without any downtime of your critical registry infrastructureAutomated Docker Builds allow you to streamline your CI/CD pipeline for an even quicker application development cycleHave you used Quay? Share your favorite features and feedback and tag @quayio on Twitter or contact us to share your story and we will enter you in a drawing for a Quay gift!Try Quay outNeed a better way to store, build, and manage your containers? Try the Quay container registry today for top-of-the-line container management.