Questions About Docker You Didn’t Ask Yet

The most common question on many developers’ minds is whether they should use Docker or Kubernetes. The misconception is that you have to use one or the other. But Kubernetes will allow you to use your existing Docker containers and workloads. This allows you to resolve issues with moving to scale.

Applications that need to be moved over to a sample server stack will have hardware, the OS (which is generally going to be Ubuntu when you’re working with Docker), and the Docker daemon that will be installed on top of that OS. This allows us to spin up containers.

Docker comes with great tools for working with containerized applications. These applications can create new Docker containers. You can use Docker build to easily create and share mobile Docker container images using open standards. With Docker Context, you can make it easy to switch between multiple docker and Kubernetes environments.

Using Docker makes deployment easy. If your application starts to get more traffic, realizing the need to scale out to provide a better user experience, Docker can make scaling easy.

An Operations Engineer’s first instinct might be: “I have the scripts to make this stack, let’s just get new hardware and do the same deployment multiple times.” When you’re moving to scale this can fall apart easily.

What if your Development team has to create a new microservice to support a new requirement? Where do we piece those in? Especially if you already have effective use of the hardware? The Operations engineer would have to find that out.

A big advantage of microservice-based applications is the ability to scale out individual components. The Operations engineer would have to write scripts and find the most effective way to scale out. Responding to load identifying and addressing user experience issues when moving to scale. This is where an orchestration tool comes in.

What is Orchestration?

It is the method of moving all containers together in order to achieve a shared goal. Deploying, managing, scaling, and networking containers is carried out automatically through container orchestration.

Container orchestration is beneficial for organizations that have to deploy and manage hundreds to thousands of containers and hosts. Orchestrators are tools that carry out orchestration for containerized applications, and the most prominent examples are Kubernetes and Docker Swarm.

Is legacy app migration to docker possible?

When deploying a new legacy application, it must fit microservice architecture to use dockerization’s full features. You can migrate your legacy application to docker if you’re able to convert the legacy application to fit microservice architecture by modifying or re-writing your script.

If your legacy application does not fit the microservice infrastructure you can still migrate it to docker, but you might not be able to get the full features of dockerization.

Important features of docker

Docker has certain features that enable it to run your applications efficiently. These are the 10 most essential features:

1. Speedy and straightforward configuration
2. App isolation
3. Surge in productivity
4. Swarm
5. Service
6. Safety management
7. Exceptional software delivery
8. Accelerated system scaling
9. Software-defined networking
10. Capability to reduce the size

1. Speedy and straightforward configuration

This is one of the most important features as the faster you configure your systems, the faster you’re able to deploy code. Your infrastructure isn’t linked with the application’s environment as Docker is used in multiple environments.

2. App Isolation

Docker gives containers an isolated environment to run their applications. With each container operating independently, they are able to execute and run any application type.

3. Surge in productivity

Docker assists in increasing productivity by reducing the technical configurations and swiftly deploying apps. More importantly, it provides an isolated environment for app execution with a reduced amount of resources.

4. Swarm

It’s a cluster and scheduling tool for Docker containers. On the front end, it utilizes the Docker API, which helps you utilize multiple tools to control it. It’s a self-organization group of engines that enables pluggable backends.

5. Service

A list of tasks that specifies the state of containers inside a cluster. Each task in the service lists a single instance of a container that should be running, while swarm schedules them across nodes.

6. Safety management

Stores secrets into the swarm and only provides approved secrets to certain services. It also gives important secret commands to the engine such as secret insect and secret command.

7. Exceptional software delivery

Software delivery with the help of containers is more efficient. Containers are mobile, self-contained, and have an isolated disk volume. The isolated disk volume gets along with the container during the development and deployment stage in various environments.

8. Accelerated system scaling

Containers need less computing power to get tasks done. They allow data center operators to cram up more workloads with less hardware use which translates to shared resources reducing overall costs.

9. Software-defined networking

Docker supports software-defined networking. Without utilizing a single router, the Docker CLI and engine enable operators to define isolated networks for containers. Operators and developers design systems with complicated network topologies, and define networks in configuration files.

Since the application containers can run in isolated virtual networks, the controlled ingress and egress paths, it acts as a security benefit.

10. Capability to reduce development size

Since it provides a small footprint on the operating system through containers, Docker has the capability to reduce the size of the development.

What Is Docker Hub?

It’s a cloud-based registry which aids you in linking code via repositories. Docker Hub also allows you to build, test and store your image in the Docker cloud. You are also able to deploy your image to your host with the help of Docker hub.

Bottom Line…

Docker has and will continue to be an important tool for developers. It’s an uncomplicated tool that once you learn it you will love it. Check out our Docker offering and get your creative juices flowing.