Docker has been causing a buzz for a while and as an agency, we are quite used to the ever fast-paced movement of new technologies that come and go. So what's all the fuss around Docker I hear you ask? Well, let's take a bit of a step back and understand where Docker came from and the problems it solves in DevOps.

Docker the business came about with the help of its found Solomon Hykes to solve a need to create a tool designed to make it easier to create, deploy, and run applications by using containers. Developers use these containers to allow us to package an application with all of the parts it needs, like its code base and libraries which can have complex dependencies, this way we can ship it all out as one package.

We have been great fans of using Vagrant and VirtualBox in the past to create local virtualised environments for developers to work on, these have been getting more complex with the ever-changing needs of the technologies we use in our Linux development stack. For the developers, this has meant we are using more resource and memory on the laptops and more space to create these virtualized instances in the operating systems. For us, the switch to Docker has meant faster fewer resources and closer integration to the servers we deploy too.