Updates to container specifics (DockerHub and Helm Charts)

Thursday, February 27th, 2025 by Factor House

Updates to Container Specifics (DockerHub and Helm Charts)

As part of our 94.1 release we have seen some big, sweeping changes streamlining our deployment pipeline. Key improvements in this space include cleaning up of artifact names and solidifying our strategy around Java version compatibility and evolution. Along with these major improvements we have also poured some love into our base Dockerfiles for Kpow and Flex.

These changes ensure that our products are more ergonomic for our end-users to consume. Read on to learn more about our container improvements!

New DockerHub co-ordinates

We are excited to announce a significant improvement in our DockerHub management strategy, aimed at enhancing clarity and streamlining your experience with Factor House products.

Introducing Our New Docker Image Structure

Previously, we offered separate Docker images for different Kpow editions:

  • factorhouse/kpow-ee - (Enterprise edition)
  • factorhouse/kpow-se - (Standard edition)

We have now collapsed both kpow-se and kpow-ee into a single DockerHub image found at factorhouse/kpow.

By consolidating our Docker images, we aim to eliminate confusion and streamline the deployment process for all customers. A single image will cater to every license type, ensuring clarity and ease of use in your experience with Factor House products.

The community edition still remains available at factorhouse/kpow-ce and factorhouse/flex-ce.

New Helm Charts co-ordinates and Charts!

Welcome to Our Expanded Ecosystem

We have transitioned from the previous Charts repository kpow/kpow to a new, centralized location under the Factor House banner. This change aligns with our rebranding and underscores our status as a multi-product company dedicated to providing best-in-class tools and services.

Streamlined Helm Chart Management

To access our updated Helm Charts, please update and use the following repository:

helm repo add factorhouse https://charts.factorhouse.io
helm repo update

Key Highlights of Our New Offering

  1. Flex Helm Charts

    • We are excited to introduce Helm charts for Flex, our Apache Flink product!

    • Installation usage:

      helm install --namespace factorhouse --create-namespace flex factorhouse/flex \
  --set env.LICENSE_ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001" \
  --set env.LICENSE_CODE="FLEX_CREDIT" \
  --set env.LICENSEE="Factor House\, Inc." \
  --set env.LICENSE_EXPIRY="2022-01-01" \
  --set env.LICENSE_SIGNATURE="638......A51" \
  --set env.FLINK_REST_URL="http://flink-dev.svc"

      More detailed installation instructions can be found at our GitHub repository.

  2. Community Edition (CE) Helm Charts

    • We are excited to introduce community Helm charts for our products! This has been a much requested feature from our growing community userbase:

    • Install Kpow Community Edition with ease:

      helm install my-kpow-ce factorhouse/kpow-ce

    • Experience the power of Flex Community, now available as a Helm chart:

      helm install my-flex-ce factorhouse/flex-ce

  3. Enhanced Availability

Amazon Corretto 17 as the default base image

Starting with 94.1 the base image for our products is Amazon Coretto 17. For almost all customers will be a completely transparent change.

As part of this clean up, we have dropped a few tags:

  • alpine tag - we dropped the alpine tag so that we could focus solely on supporting amazonlinux as our base. We aim to support a single, stable long-term support distro as the base for our DockerFiles. Customers can still create their own custom DockerFile targeting alpine with our products.
  • java17tag - now the default base image, previously Java11.

Changes to DockerFile specifics

New entrypoint location

We have changed the entrypoint from /opt/operatr to /opt/factorhouse.

Note: for some customers this might be a breaking change if you use our provided Dockerfile as a base image and reference our old ENTRYPOINT anywhere.

New default JAVA_OPTS

We have added extra flags to our JAVA_OPTS: --add-opens=java.xml/com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.dom=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.xml/com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.xml/com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util=ALL-UNNAMED.

These are required to run our products with Java 17+. One of our external dependencies requires internal XML processing classes (from Xerces) and JDK 17+ enforces stricter module boundaries, blocking reflective access to internal APIs by default.

Note: if you set custom JAVA_OPTS when using our Dockerfiles, you will need to update your opts to include these additional flags.

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