Introduction to Docker

This guide will explain how to use Docker in everyday work and move on with Continuous Development.

Objectives of this guide

This guide will:

• Explain you the basics of Docker.
• Show you how to use Docker throughout the development process.
• Illustrate the automation of the deployment process with BuddyWorks and Docker.

The contents of this guide require basic Git knowledge— you can learn Git here.

Why should you care about Docker?

As a developer, you probably know that before you can run an application (for example, a website) on your machine you need to configure its environment first. The list of tasks required to do that may be pretty long and include:

• Installing database version xx.xxx
• Installing file server version yy.yyy
• Installing package a version xy.zzz
• and so on…

Environment management is cumbersome and expensive

Every change in the environment, like database version change, adding a new package or any other dependency, means that:

• Every developer has to introduce this particular change to his machine
• Upon release all the changes have to be introduced to the Production server

It’s hard to keep track of dependencies without proper tools. And still, with or without them, configuration-related problems tend to emerge unexpectedly and are hard to debug and fix. This is why over the years we’ve tested various methods of ruling them out.

Like what you read? Check out the full article here.