Pros and cons of Docker technology - Exploring benefits and drawbacks of Docker tool
The oft-repeated question is foregrounded by the developers, why Docker is preferable to the virtual machine? Docker, a container-based platform, helps the application to be deployed, replicated, moved, and backed up even more quickly with respect to virtual machines. With better container image tools than LXC, Docker enables a developer to create libraries of images, makeover the applications from multiple images, and helps him to launch those containers. It runs a container with a kind of flexibility that only clouds can offer to an infrastructure.
Docker's pros
1. Docker containers encapsulates the apps from others and the underlying system. It makes an easy pathway for the application to use the system resources like CPU, GPU, memory, I/O, networking, etc. Docker makes it definite to keep the data and code separated.
2. Docker is so portable that the containers can operate in any appropriate environment in any machine. The application environment and the underlying operating environment remain clean and cozy as the application is not linked with the host operating system.
For example, MySQL for Linux container can function in any Linux system . All the parts associated with the app are stockpiled in the same container.
Interestingly Docker container images are platform-specific. A Windows container is not active on Linux and vice versa.
3. Docker is characterized by its high degree of composability of the containers.
Business applications are usually a set of several separate components like a web server, a database, an in-memory cache. Containers hold the quality of composing these pieces into a functional unit with easily changeable parts. Each piece means a different container that can be modified, maintained, updated, swapped out separately, and thereby, the platform becomes a natural choice against the sluggish traditional development processes and non-pliable monolithic apps. It is an easy go for lightweight and portable containers to develop and maintain microservices-based applications.
4. A slew of containers can be operated simultaneously from a given system. The reason is, they are lightweight and carry little overhead. Again, they are useful to scale an application across clusters of systems and to regulate services to meet spikes in demand or to preserve resources. Docker posses an effective built-in orchestration system, It owns Swarm mode for less demanding cases. This is how Docker's containers offer easy orchestration and scaling.
Docker cons
Docker containers are adept in solving a great number of problems, but it is no elixir. It has its own distinctive disadvantages too.
1. Docker cannot provide a high degree of isolation for processes that the virtual machines can. A Windows virtual machine can run on a Linux hypervisor and vice versa. On the contrary, Docker's operation is system-specific.
2. Docker Containers use the host operating system’s resource in a controlled measure. Many applications use the same OS kernel. The outcome is, containerized apps cannot provide isolation as thorough as virtual machines.
Conclusion
Docker is a very popular platform. However, it is continuously evolving to meet its shortcomings. For example, the Docker team has developed a solution to let loose the platform from its system-specific activity. They have created "Manifests" to let it operate in multiple operating systems.
Docker Tutorials and helpful articles
Check following tutorial and articles:
