Pasted from here

I’ve spoken to a few groups recently about Docker. Rather than sharing slides, I wanted to share my notes which will hopefully make a fast, rounded entry for people investigating the technology, particularly those coming from a Microsoft Azure background. So this is a list of articles, with a title for a sequence of articles, the links, and a brief comment on why you should read them. Hopefully it’s well timed, Christmas holidays are just a week away so a few people will be looking for reading lists, because if you’re anything like me coding in the holidays is regarded as antisocial, but you can get away with reading.

What is docker

https://www.docker.com/whatisdocker/ - Read, or watch, this to understand what docker is. The only caveat I’d make is that they frequently compare containerization to virtualization. I think it would be cleaner to make the comparison with hypervisors to acknowledge that both hypervisors and containers are forms of virtualization. You must go beyond understanding docker as a container technology and look at docker hub as a store for standardised machine image. Get deeper into this by reading the docker book http://dockerbook.com/

How to install and run (mainly in Azure)

http://msopentech.com/blog/2014/09/11/docker_host_in_azure/ Read this to see the easiest (for now) way to get docker running on Azure. Before you go though, note that it is no longer necessary to set up a linux work environment. Both the Azure cross platform CLI and the docker command line can now be run on a Windows machine (http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/11/18/docker-cli-for-windows-clients/), and please allow me to drive home the cross platform Microsoft Azure CLI as a very important.

http://msopentech.com/blog/2014/08/15/getting_started_docker_on_microsoft_azure - read this to work through basic usage of docker on a single machine.

I think the key differentiator for Docker is DockerHub, get started herehttp://docs.docker.com/userguide/dockerhub/. One day ISVs will write for DockerHub and enterprises will decide which cloud to deploy to. That’ll change the market. Caveat – this statement was future looking and may not come true.

Docker Machine

… and swarm and compose

http://blog.docker.com/2014/12/announcing-docker-machine-swarm-and-compose-for-orchestrating-distributed-apps/ Read this because machine is a container centric / cloud neutral approach to deployment that will pivot how you make hosting choices

Tea Leaves

There’s a few articles I’d suggest if you’re into reading the tea leaves to understand what may happen in the future http://msopentech.com/blog/2014/10/15/docker-containers-coming-microsoft-linux-server-near/ Read this to begin to understand how Windows will evolve to support containers and specifically docker. The future is bright but we’re not providing much clarity just yet. This content predates the docker machine/swarm/compose announcements so expect a rapidly evolving story here. The Register’s comment piece about it here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/16/windows_containers_deep_dive/

Security

It’s not always presented clearly but you need to make a distinction between two security concerns – the first is security of the host machine from containers, the second is security of the container management tools and control of who can deploy, what workload into a host.

https://coreos.com/blog/rocket/ referencing this later as well, but here because CoreOS have been critical of enterprise security of docker, so securing the publisher identity of the container image, and decomposing the container runtime and the management tools makes a lot of sense.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/azure-cto-why-microsoft-is-digging-docker-and-the-container-revolution/Russinovich on docker including some short comments on container security. Docker is responsible and posts information about its security vulnerabilitieshttps://www.docker.com/resources/security/

Opinion pieces

The Register’s series on Docker is short, pithy and easy to get to grips with Starts here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/28/docker_part_1_the_history_of_docker/ But if you’re running short on time go straight here:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/docker_part_2_the_libcontainer_evolution/

Frenemies

I’m not intending here to suggest anything at all about relationships between the different projects, but there’s some interesting overlap in goals with these projects that I don’t want to speculate on too hard just yet.

https://coreos.com/blog/rocket/ read this because the opinion pieces are positioning Rocket as a Docker competitor. I think its more complicated than that, but it would be a strong refactoring of the docker proposition. http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1434 Snappy in Ubuntu.