Docker Announces Open Source Compose for AWS ECS & Microsoft ACI

Docker has announced that the code for the Microsoft Azure Container Instances (ACI) and Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) integrations will be open-sourced. For the first time, Docker has made Compose available for the cloud, in addition to enabling an open community for evolving the Compose standard.

Docker is an open-source containerization platform. It allows programmers to bundle applications into containers, standardized executable components that combine application source code with the OS libraries and dependencies needed to run that code in any context.

Containers make distributing distributed programs easier, and they’re becoming more popular as companies move to cloud-native development and hybrid multi-cloud setups. Developers can develop containers without Docker, but the platform makes building, deploying, and managing containers easier, simpler, and safer.

Docker is a free toolkit that enables developers to make use of a single API to build, operate, update, deploy, and stop containers using simple commands and work-saving automation. Docker containers are live instances of Docker images that are currently executing.

Containers are ephemeral, live, executable content, whereas Docker images are read-only files. It enables the users to interact with them, and admins can use Docker commands to change their settings and circumstances.

Why are containers popular, and how do they work?

Docker adoption surged and continues to grow as a result of these factors. According to the reports from Docker, there are 11 million developers and 13 billion monthly container images downloaded. Process isolation and virtualization characteristics provided into the Linux kernel enable containers.

These features, like control groups (Cgroups) for allocating resources among methods and namespaces for restricting a process’ access or visibility into other resources or areas of the system, allow multiple application components to start sharing the resources of a single instance of the host operating system, similar to how a hypervisor allows multiple virtual machines (VMs) to share resources of a single instance of the host OS.

As a result, container technology provides all of the functionality and benefits of virtual machines (VMs), as well as significant additional benefits: cost-effective scalability, application isolation, and disposability.

• Lighter

Containers are lighter than VMs because they don’t carry the payload of a whole OS instance and hypervisor; instead, they take the OS processes and dependencies required to run the code.

Container sizes are measured in megabytes (as opposed to gigabytes for specific VMs), allowing for greater utilization of hardware resources and speedier startup times.

• Greater resource efficiency

You can execute many more copies of a program on the same hardware with containers than you can with VMs. This can help you save money on cloud storage.

• Effortless operation

Containers are faster and easier to deploy, provision, and restart than virtual machines, which improves developer productivity. This makes them a better fit for development teams following Agile and DevOps approaches, as they can be used in continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

Reliable docker deployment consultation can make the implementation process easier. Other advantages cited by container users include higher app quality, faster market reaction, and much more.

• Open Source Compose

Docker is working on two fronts to make it easier to get programs running on the cloud. The Compose specification was first transferred into a community effort. This will allow Compose to grow with the community, allowing it to meet the demands of more users better while remaining platform agnostic.

Second, we’ve been working with Amazon and Microsoft on CLI connectors for Amazon ECS and Microsoft ACI that let you deploy Compose applications directly to the cloud using Docker compose-up.

The company wanted to ensure that existing CLI commands were not affected when we implemented these connectors. They also desire an architecture that would allow adding more backends and SDKs in popular languages.

Docker inc have publicly sourced the Compose CLI and Node SDK sections of the diagram. This design is not final, and the Compose CLI will be merged with the existing CLI later.

Image Source: Docker Blog

The Compose CLI switches which backend is utilized for the command or API call based on the Docker Context that the user selects. This allows transparently transmitting commands to the existing CLI that use existing contexts.

The back-end interface enables creating a backend for any container runtime, allowing users to enjoy the same Docker CLI UX as before while also taking advantage of the new APIs and SDK. To give equivalent functionality to the CLI commands, the Compose CLI can serve a gRPC API.

They also utilize gRPC because it allows creating high-quality SDKs in popular languages such as Node.js, Python, and Golang. While the firm now only has a Node SDK that provides single container management on ACI, they also have plans to add Compose support, ECS support, and more language SDKs in the near future.

VS Code has already implemented its Docker experience on ACI using the Node SDK.Microsoft Windows Server now supports Docker containerization. Most cloud providers also provide services to assist developers in creating and running Docker-based applications.