What is Docker? and Why you should use it.

Docker is hotter than hot because it makes it possible to get far more apps running on the same old servers and it also makes it very easy to package and ship programs. 

Here's a 10k feet overview of what you need to know about Docker.

A Docker container can be seen as a computer inside your computer. The cool thing about this virtual computer is that you can send it to your friends; And when they start this computer and run your code they will get exactly the same results as you did.

In short, you should use Docker because

• it allows you to wrangle dependencies starting from the operating system up to details such as R and Latex package versions
• it makes sure that your analyses are reproducible.

There are a couple of other points what Docker helps with:

• Portability: Since a Docker container can easily be sent to another machine, you can set up everything on your own computer and then run the analyses on e.g. a more powerful machine.
• Sharability: You can send the Docker container to anyone (who knows how to work with Docker).

Before Docker containers

For many years now, enterprise software has typically been deployed either on “bare metal” (i.e. installed on an operating system that has complete control over the underlying hardware) or in a virtual machine (i.e. installed on an operating system that shares the underlying hardware with other “guest” operating systems). Naturally, installing on bare metal made the software painfully difficult to move around and difficult to update—two constraints that made it hard for IT to respond nimbly to changes in business needs.

Then virtualization came along. Virtualization platforms (also known as “hypervisors”) allowed multiple virtual machines to share a single physical system, each virtual machine emulating the behavior of an entire system, complete with its own operating system, storage, and I/O, in an isolated fashion. IT could now respond more effectively to changes in business requirements, because VMs could be cloned, copied, migrated, and spun up or down to meet demand or conserve resources.

Virtual machines also helped cut costs, because more VMs could be consolidated onto fewer physical machines. Legacy systems running older applications could be turned into VMs and physically decommissioned to save even more money.

But virtual machines still have their share of problems. Virtual machines are large (gigabytes), each one containing a full operating system. Only so many virtualized apps can be consolidated onto a single system. Provisioning a VM still takes a fair amount of time. Finally, the portability of VMs is limited. After a certain point, VMs are not able to deliver the kind of speed, agility, and savings that fast-moving businesses are demanding.

Docker container benefits :

• Docker enables more efficient use of system resources
• Docker enables faster software delivery cycles

Problems Docker containers don’t solve :

• Docker won’t fix your security issues
• Docker doesn’t turn applications magically into micro-services
• Docker isn’t a substitute for virtual machines
  
  

Following Video can explain in detail, what is Docker and How to install it and why you should use Docker in career.