What is Docker?
1 min readApr 23, 2021
Docker is an open platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. Essentially it is a self contained space for applications to run.
How it works?
- Docker is open source containerization platform made up of “images”
- An image is the environment containing the application, and all of its dependencies
- The image is executable as a container (a container is a runtime instance of an image)
- Containers are generally read only (independent of data)
- Containers are light weight because they are sharing a host operating system.
Why use Docker?
- Cohesive/ Portable environment: Docker uses containers to wrap software in the complete file system which contains all necessary tools for the software to run (anything that can be installed on a server)
- Allows for microservice architecture: each service does a different task, allowing for application to be broken down therefore easier to maintain
- Optimizes allocation of resources: uses container instead of virtual machines, preventing the user from having to pre allocate memory or disk space
