What are the primary motivations to use Docker for local software development?

Question

What are the primary motivations to use Docker for local software development?

Answer 1

There are many reasons to choose Docker which has blown up as one of the software developer’s favourite tools, below are some important reasons:-

1. Reliability -  A docker container contains the application and the dependencies needed to run it e.g. the binaries and libraries). This is handy because when someone else spins up your containerized app, they have the right dependencies to run the app (not an older or newer version that might break things). A container that runs on your laptop should run on another dev’s desktop and should run in production as well.

2. Portability - As long as your development machine can run Docker, you can run a Docker container. This means that your dev team can work on a containerized app regardless of whether a particular dev prefers a Linux, macOS or Windows box.

3. Speed - If you are used to developing and testing on a VM or physical environment, you know it can take minutes or longer to set up an environment to run a test. You can change the code in an image the code used to build the running container, update the image and it generally takes milliseconds to launch the app.

4. Size - Unlike VMs, containers leverage the host operating system, which means that a container image, as opposed to a VM running an app, is much smaller. Usually but not always under 500 MB where a VM based app might take several GB to deploy and run. This part of why containers are faster to run see 3 above, but also makes it easier to do things like try scaling an application on your laptop; something that doing with VMs can be challenging.

If you want to make your career in software development then I would suggest you must take up the following Docker training Course. You can also watch the following video tutorial to learn more about it.

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