In class, for our activities and homework, the professor told us to download Visual Studio Code and Docker that we were going to use for the semester. I did not know what Docker was and what its purpose was going to be in this class. I was interested in learning more about Docker and why it is such a professional tool in software development.

In software, Docker is an open platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. It enables us to separate our applications from our infrastructure so we can deliver the software quickly. It is a set of platforms as a service product 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-designed.

In a way, Docker is a bit like a virtual machine. But unlike a virtual machine, rather than creating a whole virtual operating system, Docker allows applications to use the same Linux kernel as the system that they’re running on and only requires applications be shipped with things not already running on the host computer.

And importantly, Docker is open source. This means that anyone can contribute to Docker and extend it to meet their own needs if they need additional features that aren’t available out of the box.

I chose this article because I was curious about Docker and wanted to know more about it. So, from all the sources that I could have found, this one has all the details about docker, docker containers, how needed it is in software development, and why it is so desired in companies.

Now that we know what Docker is, let’s understand why it is used and needed for software. Docker streamlines the development lifecycle by allowing developers to work using local standardized environments, using local containers which provide our applications and services.

I think one of the reasons Docker is important, is that it can get more applications running on the same hardware than other technologies, and makes it easier to package and ship programs, which is a high potential. Companies use Docker a lot in software where they do a lot of programming and applications because it makes the work easier and more portable.

As a computer science major, what I understood about Docker even though I have never used it, it’s a great platform when it comes to running applications and can do many of them at the same time. I am still getting used to it with the activities that we do in class and love to see how it works and its roles.

Docker containers, images, and registries | Microsoft Docs

From the blog CS@Worcester – Gracia's Blog (Computer Science Major) by gkitenge and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.