Top Features of Docker That Stand You Out from the Crowd

Docker is an open platform to develop, ship and run applications containers on a common operating system. It enables you to separate applications from infrastructures so that software is delivered quickly. Infrastructure can be managed by Docker in the same way as one managed their applications. The delay between writing code and running it for production can be significantly reduced with the help of Docker’s methodologies for quick shipping, testing, and deployment of codes. 

Features of Docker:

Docker provides various features, some of which are listed and discussed below.

1. Faster and easier configuration
2. Application isolation
3. Increase in productivity
4. Swarm 
5. Services 
6. Routing Mesh 
7. Security Management 
8. Rapid scaling of Systems 
9. Better Software Delivery 
10. Software-defined networking
11. Has the Ability to Reduce the Size

1. Faster and Easier configuration: 

It is one of the key features of Docker that helps you in configuring the system in a faster and easier manner. Due to this feature, codes can be deployed in less time and with fewer efforts. The infrastructure is not linked with the environment of the application as Docker is used with a wide variety of environments. 

2. Application isolation:

Docker provides containers that are used to run applications in an isolated environment. Since each container is independent, Docker can execute any kind of application. 

3. Increase in productivity:

It helps in increasing productivity by easing up the technical configuration and rapidly deploying applications. Moreover, it not only provides an isolated environment to execute applications, but it reduces the resources as well.

4. Swarm: 

Swarm is a clustering and scheduling tool for Docker containers. At the front end, it uses the Docker API, which helps us to use various tools to control it.  It is a self-organizing group of engines that enables pluggable backends.

5. Services: 

Services is a list of tasks that specifies the state of a container inside a cluster. Each task in the Services lists one instance of a container that should be running, while Swarm schedules them across the nodes. 

7. Security Management: 

It saves secrets into the swarm and chooses to give services access to certain secrets, including a few important commands to the engine such as secret inspect, secret create, etc.

8. Rapid scaling of Systems: 

Containers require less computing hardware and get more work done. They allow data centre operators to cram more workload into less hardware, meaning sharing of hardware, resulting in lower costs. 

9. Better Software Delivery: 

Software Delivery with the help of containers is said to be more efficient. Containers are portable, self-contained and include an isolated disk volume. This isolated volume goes along with the container as it develops and is deployed to various environments. 

10. Software-defined networking:

Docker supports Software-defined networking. Without having touched a single router, the Docker CLI and Engine enables operators to define isolated networks for containers. Operators and Developers design systems with complex network topologies, as well as define the networks in configuration files. Since the application’s containers can run in an isolated virtual network, with controlled ingress and egress path, it acts as a security benefit as well.

11. Has the Ability to Reduce the Size:

Since it provides a smaller footprint of the OS via containers, Docker holds the capability to reduce the size of the development. 

Who is Docker for?

Docker as a tool benefits both developers and system administrators, and hence is a part of various toolchains of DevOps (Developers+Operations). It helps developers to focus on writing the code and not worry about the system that it will run on. Moreover, they can make use of one of the thousands of programs that are already designed to run in a Docker container as a part of their applications and get a head start. 

As for Operations, Docker provides flexibility as well as reduces the number of systems needed due to its lower overhead and small footprint. 

To Sum Up…

We have discussed the top 11 Docker Features that help it stand out from the crowd and gives it huge popularity. It is popular due to its revolutionized development in the software industry, creating vast economies of scale. 

Hence, containers and Dockers hold the potential to open up new opportunities for your enterprise.