Exploring new territories

For them and for the few people out there who may not know what containers are or what Docker is, here is a short video in which Docker CEO, Ben Golub, tells in plain English how container technology works and what benefits could bring to development (and operational) teams.

Ben explains Docker and containers in a breeze, as a map describes and help you understand the territory at a glance. But Docker has grown to mean many things since Solomon Hykes first showed it to the public at PyCon in March 2013. It began earlier as an internal software project to make the deployment of applications easier on dotClound, a PaaS provider. It has since grown into an ecosystem of tools that could package applications together with their dependencies and deploy them anywhere: on the developer’s laptop, on premises behind your firewall and any public cloud.

Solomon Hykes presenting at PyCon in March 2013

Same territory, different maps

Some argue that Docker should no longer be considered a set of tools, but rather an approach to software packaging and distribution. And there’s no doubt that containers make shipping applications dramatically easier and faster when comparing with traditional approaches.

Some go beyond and say that Docker has revolutionized the way software is architected as it facilitates the building of modular, micro-service oriented applications . And, indeed, containers seem to be a natural ecosystem for micro-services applications.

Docker website summarizes all this well: Docker — Build, Ship, and Run Any App, Anywhere.

You’ll also find Docker mentioned in other contexts and territories. Docker and DevOps are often used in the same phrase: “DevOps grows, and Docker spreads like wildfire, especially in the enterprise” (Rightscale State of the Cloud report, January 2016). And this makes sense too, as one of the promises of containers is to offer “separation of concerns” between development and operations teams. Docker is becoming instrumental in facilitating both the cooperation between these teams and the automation of code pipelines.

Source: RightScale 2016 State of the Cloud Report

But, all in all, it’s Docker’s mission that gives you an understanding on what Docker really is at its core. Docker is about “creating tools of mass innovation”.