

Docker Basics: A practical starters guide - timbutlerau
https://www.conetix.com.au/blog/docker-basics-practical-starters-guide

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chrisacree
I use AWS for some projects, so I can boot up identical machines in a few
minutes as needed from a script.

What's the benefit of Docker for me? Easier time switching hardware/OS down
the road? I guess I just never fully understood the value proposition (I'm not
an Ops guy).

~~~
jdoss
It allows you to bundle your entire app and all the specific OS dependencies
into one container to deploy it consistently on anything that supports Docker.
While you might have your scripts to fit your needs for setting up your
servers on AWS, what if you have users that are trying to deploy your cool app
don't have access to your scripts or the understanding to even use them if you
handed them over? What if you could ensure that your app was 100% setup
correctly with everything needed regardless of the underlying OS? Docker helps
make that happen.

The best example I can personally give you that shows the value and power of
docker is with my experience with the forum software Discourse [1]. Being an
Ops guy, I wanted to install it on CentOS 7 without their Docker setup and it
took me a lot of time and effort to get it to work correctly. I recently set
it up again for a demo for a group of people to check out and I didn't have
the time to do a manual install, so I used their Docker method. I had it up
and running in under 30min on CentOS 7. It was great and updating the forum
down the road was very easy as a result of using the Docker method too. My
manual install has a bunch of work involved to update it correctly and as a
result, I don't updated it as frequently.

[1]:
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse](https://github.com/discourse/discourse)

