The document is a presentation by Jérôme Petazzoni discussing Docker, an open platform for building, shipping, and running applications. He emphasizes Docker's advantages for tech support, technical writing, development, and system administration, highlighting its ability to create reproducible environments and streamline workflows. Throughout the presentation, Petazzoni shares insights on challenges faced in these roles and how Docker can aid in overcoming them, ultimately improving efficiency and collaboration.

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2. Docker:
automation for
the rest of us
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3. Outline
Who I am
What I do
How Docker is helping
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4. Who am I?
(And why am I here?)
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5. Jérôme Petazzoni
@jpetazzo
Tamer of Unicorns and Tinkerer Extraordinaire*
Grumpy French DevOps
Dislikes: repetitive tasks
Likes: shell scripts
"Go Away Or I Will Replace You Wiz Le Very Small Shell Script!"
* At least one of those is actually on my business card
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6. What do I do?
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7. I am tech support
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8. I am tech support
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9. I am tech support ... for a PaaS!
Every day a new kind of fun!
Monday: Node.js
Tuesday: Python
Wednesday: Ruby
Thursday: Java
Friday: PHP
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10. Lessons learned
Lots of support requests are:
"How do I do X with your product?"
Good documentation → fewer tech support requests
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
"Give someone good support and you help them today;
write some docs and you help everybody forever."
Unless your business model relies on a product that you
can't install unless you have a PhD or a support contract
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11. I am a technical writer
Wrote 60-80% of dotCloud documentation
Wrote 30-40% of Docker training materials
I ♥ to explain things
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12. I am a technical writer
Wrote 60-80% of dotCloud documentation
Wrote 30-40% of Docker training materials
I ♥ to explain things
Documentation is part of your product
It's NOT the least important part
We're talking about technical products here. Don't brag because you
were able to place a phone call without reading the user manual.
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13. I am a developer
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14. I am a developer
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15. @iamdevloper
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16. I am a sysadmin
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17. I am a sysadmin ops
Server whisperer
Fixes other people's ʇᴉɥs
On-call
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18. Public Service Advisory
Never, ever be proud of being on-call
Never, ever be on-call for free
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19. Public Service Advisory
Never, ever be proud of being on-call
Never, ever be on-call for free
You're harming yourself
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20. Public Service Advisory
Never, ever be proud of being on-call
Never, ever be on-call for free
You're harming yourself
You're harming all of us
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21. Public Service Advisory
Never, ever be proud of being on-call
Never, ever be on-call for free
You're harming yourself
You're harming all of us
Make sure people are aware of the issues
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22. I am an Impostor
Impostor syndrome, anyone?
Am I really qualified to do this?
What the F am I doing here?
Affects women more than men
This can lead to burn-out and sleep deprivation
This is more important than you think
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23. What's Docker?
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24. an open platform
to build, ship, and run
any app, anywhere
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25. What can Docker
do for me?
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26. Some challenges with tech support
"Works For Me"
"Can't reproduce"
"I would appreciate if you could test between 3 and 4am"
"So to trigger the bug you have to install X and Y then
configure A, B, and C, then download the extra file, put it in
this directory (which doesn't exists?!?) and then if you
restart three times in approximatively 5 minutes but
sometimes it takes longer you will see that the images are
shifted by a few pixels but if it doesn't work try to upgrade
Y to version Z and try all over again..."
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27. Docker for tech support
Get a well-defined, reproducible environment
Define this environment in a Dockerfile
Build this Dockerfileinto a container image
Run this container image anywhere
Same behavior, guaranteed
(or your Open Source money back)
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28. Dockerfile
FROMubuntu:14.04
RUNapt-getupdate
RUNapt-getinstall-ylibxlibygitwget
RUNgitclonegit://github.com/a/b/c
RUNmkdir-p/extra/dir
RUNwget-O/extra/dirhttp://extra/file
CMDstart-service&sleep60;
stop-service;start-service;sleep60;
stop-service;start-service;sleep60;
start-service
$dockerbuild-tpixelbug.
...
$dockerrunpixelbug
...
Automate those repetitive, unreliable tasks yourself
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29. Some challenges for tech writers
We use sphinx, showoff, LaTeX...
"To see what the final documentation will look like,
you need Ruby, 45 libraries, a custom fork of this project,
and a philosopher's stone."
Insert scary anecdote about API documentations
Result:
tech writers can't see what they're doing
other team members won't/can't contribute to the docs
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30. Docker for tech writers
FROMubuntu:14.04
MAINTAINEREducationTeamatDocker<education@docker.com>
RUNapt-getupdate
RUNapt-getinstall-ycurlwgetgitrubyruby-devlibxml2-devlibxslt-dev
build-essentialzlib1g-dev
RUNgitclonehttps://github.com/puppetlabs/showoff.git
WORKDIR/showoff
RUNgembuildshowoff.gemspec
RUNgeminstall--no-rdoc--no-ri./showoff-*.gem
#Let'sinstallprince.Thefirstdpkgwillfailbecauseofmissingdependencies,
#sowe'llinstallthedependencieswith"install-f"thentryagain.
WORKDIR/usr/src
RUNwgethttp://www.princexml.com/download/prince_9.0-5_ubuntu14.04_amd64.deb
RUNdpkg-iprince_9.0-5_ubuntu14.04_amd64.deb||true
RUNapt-getinstall-fy
RUNdpkg-iprince_9.0-5_ubuntu14.04_amd64.deb
COPY/slides//slides/
WORKDIR/slides
CMD["showoff","serve"]
EXPOSE9090
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31. Docker for tech writers
With this Dockerfile, anyone can run our "doc pipelines"
Results are consistent, no more:
"you forgot to install 字形 so the output is different!"
Less wasted time for onboarding, upgrades, reinstalls...
Automate those repetitive, difficult tasks yourself
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32. Some challenges for developers
Set up this Ruby + Postgres + Mongo + Cassandra stack
Make sure that all team members have the same env
Have consistent library versions between dev and prod
Basically, the same challenges as before, but worse
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33. Docker for developers
Write Dockerfiles for each component
Put components together with Fig/Compose
Profit!
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34. Describing a complex stack
web:
build:src/front
links:
-redis
-postgres:db
-api
-zookeeper:zk
redis:
image:redis
postgres:
image:postgres
api:
build:src/backend
links:
-redis
-postgres:db
-cassandra
-zookeeper:zk
zookeeper:
image:jplock/zookeeper
cassandra:
image:spotify/cassandra
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35. Onboarding
Hire developer*
Give them a computer
Install Docker
gitclone...
docker-composeup...
Your stack is up and running
*Actually the most difficult part.
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36. Cold, hard data
How long does it take for a developer to join a new project?
Before Docker: 2 days
After Docker: 2 hours
(Source: Worldline)
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37. Docker vs Configuration Management
Quick poll:
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38. Docker vs Configuration Management
Quick poll:
who is a dev?
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39. Docker vs Configuration Management
Quick poll:
who is a dev?
who uses Chef/Puppet/Salt/Ansible/...?
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40. Docker vs Configuration Management
Quick poll:
who is a dev?
who uses Chef/Puppet/Salt/Ansible/...?
who is happy with it and found it easy to learn?
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41. Docker vs Configuration Management
Quick poll:
who is a dev?
who uses Chef/Puppet/Salt/Ansible/...?
who is happy with it and found it easy to learn?
CM is good, but learning curve is steep
Docker lets you automate deployment yourself
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42. Production
People keep asking all the time:
Is Docker ready for production?
Can I run Docker in production?
Who runs Docker in production?
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43. Production
People keep asking all the time:
Is Docker ready for production?
Can I run Docker in production?
Who runs Docker in production?
Why don't you ask the same questions for:
Eclipse
SublimeText
Vagrant
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44. Repeat after me:
It is OK to use
Docker in dev,
even without
going to prod.
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45. — But can I...
— No! Later.
Thanks.
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46. Some challenges for ops
How do I reduce the pain of deployment?
How do I scale up and down?
How do I move apps from colo to cloud and vice versa?
How do I use my resources efficiently?
(i.e. without wasting CPU, RAM, disk)
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47. Deployment pain
Developers send a tarball* Friday evening
Deployment deadline is Monday morning
Installation instructions are not up to date
Dependencies are incompletely specified
External services are hard-coded all over the place
They use Debian, we use CentOS
* Or a git hash, in more sophisticated places.
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48. Deployment with Docker
Developers ship a container image
(or a repo with a Dockerfile)
Configuration is done through environment variables*
External dependencies are expressed with ambassadors
(e.g. the redis server address is redis, and Docker takes
care of setting up a proper DNS entry in the container)
The dev-to-prod pipeline was already tested by the devs,
when they did the dev-to-test deployment
* See also: twelve-factor app principles.
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49. Scaling up
www7needs to be exactly like www[1-6]
Possible solutions:
Configuration Management
(steep learning curve, not a silver bullet)
Golden Images (AMI...)
(slow, especially for small changes)
Server Cloning
(can affect existing server; requires manual touch-ups)
Docker
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50. Scaling up with Docker
Create new Docker host
(with e.g. docker-machine)
Deploy application
(SSH + dockerrun, or with remote API)
Done!
(You still need to update load balancers etc., but you have to
do that even without Docker anyway.)
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51. From colo to cloud to colo
Must make sure that servers are absolutely identical
Possible solutions:
Configuration Management
Tedious, manual work
It would be nice if we had a self-contained meta-package
holding our application and all its dependencies, all the
way down to the OS!
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52. From colo to cloud to colo
Must make sure that servers are absolutely identical
Possible solutions:
Configuration Management
Tedious, manual work
It would be nice if we had a self-contained meta-package
holding our application and all its dependencies, all the
way down to the OS!
Guess what, that's exactly what Docker does. Cool!
(You can see Docker images as "super-debs" or "super-rpms".)
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53. Optimize resource usage (problem 1)
You have:
5 hypervisors (physical machines)
Each server has:
16 GB RAM, 8 cores, 1 TB disk
Each week, your team asks:
one VM with X RAM, Y CPU, Z disk
Difficulty: easy
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54. Optimize resource usage (problem 2)
You have:
1000+ hypervisors (and counting!)
Each server has different resources:
8-500 GB of RAM, 4-64 cores, 1-100 TB disk
Multiple times a day, a different team asks for:
up to 50 VMs with different characteristics
Difficulty: ???
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55. Mesos
Generic solution to resource usage problem
Open Source project (Apache Foundation)
In production use at Twitter, AirBNB, eBay, ...
Runs your code but doesn't deploy or distribute it
How can we distribute our code on our nodes?
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56. Mesos + Docker
Prepare your workload in a container image
Test it locally or on a smaller cluster
Submit it to Mesos
Mesos picks the right nodes to run your workload
Docker downloads the container images and runs them
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57. Mesos + Docker + Swarm
Mesos is complicated-ish to deploy
Mesos is complicated-ish to manage
Mesos is complicated-ish to use
Docker Swarm can expose a cluster* with the Docker API
Swarm lets you use a cluster without learning a new tool
(Deployment and management are still a challenge)
(Damn! Where is my free lunch!)
* Currently a vanilla Docker cluster, soon a Mesos cluster
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58. Summary
I am a tech support engineer:
Docker helps me to reproduce issues
I am a technical writer:
Docker helps me to render my docs
I am a developer:
Docker helps me to abstract environments, express
dependencies, be operational faster
I am a sysadmin:
Docker helps me to deploy, scale, orchestrate
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59. How much does it cost?
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60. How much does it cost?
The Docker Engine is Open Source
The Docker Registry is Open Source
I'm not here to sell anything
(But if you insist, we have commercial products, support, and all that stuff!)
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61. Questions?
@jpetazzo
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