Author Sam Neaves

What is Docker?

Docker is a platform for developers and sysadmins to develop, deploy, and run applications with containers. Containers are a type of virtualization technology that package an application and its dependencies together in a single unit, allowing for easy deployment and scaling of applications. Docker provides a way to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containers, making it easier for developers to build and distribute applications.

Why is Docker useful in the IEU

1. Docker can be useful when you want to deploy apps.

You may have created a webapp that runs locally on your laptop, and you want to deploy this on a server. Docker is a good to way to make this less painful as if your app is in docker it is likely to be able to run on other docker servers easily.

1. Docker can be useful when you want to distribute and reproduce complex workflows and analyses that use many different languages and tools.

You may use tools such as poetry to control a python env, but what do you do when your workflow calls python, R, C, Java and others? Docker allows you to control the whole system and distribute it.

Video demo:

Video intro to docker: using docker