As an example, in a cloud environment, the provisioned machines are typically VMs. In summary, containers provide a portable and efficient way to package applications and their dependencies, ensuring consistency across various environments. The benefits they bring to software development is similar to the benefits brought to the global economy by the humble shipping container. Virtualisation is like having a magician’s hat that can conjure up multiple hats within it.
Moreover, the consistency provided by Docker ensures reliability in the deployment process. Developers can be confident that if an application works in a Docker container, it will also work in production, leading to fewer deployment failures and rollbacks. Generally speaking, microservices architecture is famous for its flexibility, scalability, and capacity for independent deployment and management of each service. Docker’s lightweight nature means you can quickly spin up, scale, or shut down these containers.
The Docker client
A container is a lightweight, standalone, and executable software package that includes everything needed to run a piece of software, including the code, runtime, system tools, and libraries. From streamlining development environments to following the best DevOps practices, Docker consistently stands out as a great platform for application deployment and management. Kubernetes, also known as K8, is an open-source container orchestration platform.
- For example, Compose can help you create and configure your application’s service dependencies, such as databases, caches, or web service APIs.
- In 2000, a hosting provider was searching for better ways to manage their customers’ websites, since they were all installed in the same machine and competed for the same resources.
- With containers, you can run more applications on the same hardware without a significant drop in performance.
- Docker Compose is a tool to simplify the management of complex, multi-container applications in both development and production environments.
Docker is important to both the development community and container community because it made using containers so easy that everyone started doing it. A lot of people think that Docker was the first of its kind, but this is not true – Linux containers have existed since the 1970s. The above command removes the image starting with the image ID 94e81 from the Docker Host. Now, let us refer to another example of docker create command, which has options and commands being passed to it.
One-use tools
Using cron jobs can significantly reduce your workload and optimize your time. Using this workflow, you can test out new software without performing a manual installation. For example, you may find it difficult and tedious to set up a MySQL server. Instead, you can use the Docker CLI to execute this task in just one command. Although they isolate and allocate resources in a similar way, containers are usually more portable, efficient, and secure. These will hold certain items together in a sealed environment, allowing them to be transported by ships, trains, or airplanes.
This consistency is crucial for operations teams deploying and managing these applications in production settings. Furthermore, the Docker Trusted Registry can securely store and manage Docker images. This registry, coupled with the scalable infrastructure of Docker hosting, ensures that cloud-native applications are high-performing, secure, and well-managed. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) advocates for this approach, emphasizing the significance of containerized applications in modern software deployment. Docker aligns with CNCF’s vision by offering the necessary tools and standards to build and deploy containerized applications.
Fast, consistent delivery of your applications
One of the most significant benefits of integrating Docker into CI/CD pipelines is the increased delivery speed. You can quickly spin containers up and down, accelerating the various stages of the pipeline. In Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, Docker offers a consistent, reproducible, and efficient means of automating the testing and deployment of code. To avoid this, you should delete Docker images regularly to reclaim valuable disk space. Developers can also use Docker Compose to define persistent volumes for storage, specify base nodes and document and configure service dependencies.
You can connect a
container to one or more networks, attach storage to it, or even create a new
image based on its current state. Imagine you’re developing a killer web app that has three main components – a React frontend, a Python API, and a PostgreSQL database. If you wanted to work on this project, you’d have to install Node, Python, and PostgreSQL. With standard container sizes, the packing density of goods you can move increases. So, every ship, freight train or truck can carry more goods during every trip, making it cheaper to move goods around the world.
Docker (software)
Before shipping containers, cargo handling was labor-intensive and time-consuming, leading to inefficiencies and delays in global trade. Cargo arrived in various shapes and sizes, and the lack of standardised packaging made it challenging to stack and secure items efficiently. Docker is both the name of the company (Docker Inc) and the software they have created which packages software into containers. Docker aligns seamlessly with the principles of DevOps, a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). This approach emphasizes automation, collaboration, and rapid service delivery.
It is responsible for the overall functioning of the Docker platform. In this post, I will try my best to explain Docker in the simplest way I can.
Developers can access an open source registry containing thousands of user-contributed containers. Organizations that use containers report many other benefits including improved app quality, faster response to market changes and more. Although Docker is often more efficient than a Virtual Machine (VM), working on a physical server can be faster.
But it would have a virtual copy of the process table, network interface(s), and the file system mount point(s). These have been inherited from the operating system of the host on which the container is hosted and running. One of the great things about open source is that you have choice in what technology you use to accomplish a task. The docker what is it Docker engine can be useful for lone developers who need a lightweight, clean environment for testing, but without a need for complex orchestration. If Docker is available on your system and everyone around you is familiar with the Docker toolchain, then Docker Community Edition (docker-ce) is a great way to get started with containers.
In the above example, we are instructing Docker to delete 2 containers within a single command. The first container to be deleted is specified using its container ID, and the second container to be deleted is specified using its name. In the above example, Docker will create the container using the latest Ubuntu image and then immediately start the container. Before we proceed further, let’s try to decode and understand the output of the docker ps command.
