[Swlug] Docker, containers, oh my!

[Matt Willsher]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

David - when you say in hindsight you chose the wrong technology with LXC, what do you mean?

My reasons for the original questions are that, in looking for a new role, I’m finding Docker mentioned a lot and it gives me some pause. I don’t actually think there is a lot wrong with the 'traditional’ packaging apps into an OS native format, using config management to set up a VM and deploy into that. I can see the theoretical benefits of Docker, but the extra overhead and complexity, security and storage matters seem like a time sink. 

I’ve dabbled with Docker in dev situations and built up a reasonably complex compose file that set up some home media components. I can see the appeal for large-scale environments where components need to be regularly updated as part of a scheduled release cycle, but issues around patching of the base containers and general workflow seemed rather nebulous. Abstracting away the underlying platform is appealing - all that’s needed in the runtime environment is a stock Docker OS (CoreOS, Atomic or Ubuntu seem the best candidates at the moment, but ), though the announcement of Dockers base OS is an interesting one.

I wonder if rkt will ultimately be the tooling of choice outside dev - it does away with the union filesystem, is more aligned to Kubernetes terminology, leverages other projects rather been an entirely self-contained eco-system as Docker is becoming. Though of course, they’ll recommend you run it on CoreOS :)

I  think https://thehftguy.com/2017/02/23/docker-in-production-an-update/ <https://thehftguy.com/2017/02/23/docker-in-production-an-update/> and the comments there after raise a lot of good points.



Matt











> On 20 Apr 2017, at 10:27, David Goodwin via Swlug <swlug at mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> At $job-1 I built a hosting platform for (mostly) wordpress sites using LXC containers (with hindsight I chose the wrong technology - but at the time LXC seemed more mature with support for e.g. privilege separation).
> 
> I think it's hosting about 2500 sites now - spread over about 20 VMs.
> 
> So - they are "production ready".
> 
> 
> But it does depend on the application(s). Deploying something like a standalone Wordpress site (minimal interdependencies) is quite different from a large bespoke application.
> 
> 
> Container management/orchestration is still something that's being worked on. Kubernetes looks very promising.
> 
>> 
>> Do you use it and if so to what degree? Has it made your liked easier?
> 
> 
> Using it - Yes. But not entirely.
> 
> I makes it easier to deploy the application to live - as there's no "build a VM, install stuff onto it" stage...
> 
> 
> David.
> 
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