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Docker in Production: A retort

patrobinson.github.io

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Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#21

Post by user5994461 »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #9

I love how the major issue, that both this article, and the original article warn about is: don't use docker on 'CORE APPS'.... That says all you need to know about the trustworthiness of Docker. EVEN DOCKER PROPONENTS caution against using it in 'important' apps.... What apps are people investing time in that aren't 'important'? Is there a coffee machine that is ok to use for a docker app somewhere?

> Is there a coffee machine that is ok to use for a docker app somewhere?

Most coffee machines are docker ready.

To guarantee you the best experience, you will need to setup a pair of coffee machines, plus an orchestration system that will be responsible for swapping them automatically when one ran out of coffee.

Note: There are only prototype of orchestration systems. Nothing for sale in the corner shop yet.

---

More seriously...

Not important: Most internal, development, and test systems

Somewhat important: Web applications, various support micro services. (They all are stateless, with multiple instances, and reactive failover by their respective load balancers).

Critical: Most databases (especially the ones without multi-master mode and automatic failover), trading applications, payment systems, accounting systems, databases with money $$$

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#22

Post by emeraldd »

carapace wrote: post #6

I've never used Docker, or containers, but I read about things like "Breaking changes and regressions ... a well documented problem with Docker" and "Can’t clean old images ... a well known issue" and it just seems to me like a crazy thing to try to use and depend on this thing/company. Bluntly put they seem like children. So nevermind a retort, what I would like to see is a sane, sensible "business value" cost/benef…

I can tell you one place I've found them very valuable: development systems. The longer I've been in the field, the more I've learned that polluting my dev box with globally installed tools makes life painful down the road. Docker provides a nice way (especially now that they have docker exec) to spin up environments, or set's of environments with tools/stacks and not touch the host. It's lighter than a bunch of vm instances and easier to orchestrate on a small scale than most tools I've found. Docker for Mac makes that even nicer!

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#23

Post by jodumont »

ben_jones wrote: post #7
carapace wrote: post #6

I've never used Docker, or containers, but I read about things like "Breaking changes and regressions ... a well documented problem with Docker" and "Can’t clean old images ... a well known issue" and it just seems to me like a crazy thing to try to use and depend on this thing/company. Bluntly put they seem like children. So nevermind a retort, what I would like to see is a sane, sensible "business value" cost/benef…

As someone considering using Docker for production infrastructure I'd love to hear from a docker expert what their thoughts are on the following observations: * Docker encourages fully disposable infrastructure * Docker containers can be more secure then traditional environments * Docker provides for indempotent environments agnostic of hardware concerns etc * Container management software (Kubernetes, etc.) makes Do…

As SysAdmin, I'm going slowly but surely to Docker. You have to follow good practice such as using devicemapper which is truly not by defaults even it CoreOS.

For sure for developer it's a big thing, for SysAdmin and people thinking about the datas it's more a pain in the ass.

Anyway, no way to go back. This is the future Jack.

On the last DockerConf you could ear ADP talking about their success with Docker, but obviously their there to promote Docker. ;)

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#24

Post by pfarnsworth »

Are these breaking changes problems caused by Docker itself? I was contacted by Docker and was considering applying, but it sounds like their engineering management doesn't know what they're doing. Is this depiction accurate or is it overblown?

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#25

Post by xorcist »

CSDude wrote: post #18
otterley wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem does containers solve for you for this particular part of your infrastructure? Native storage software packages are available for mainstream OSes that handle dependencies via the native package manager. And since the storage they manage is usually directly attached, nodes that run this software are infrequently migrated. And this software is infrequently upgraded under the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't…

> Or, to put it more bluntly, just because you've gotten away with it (thus far) doesn't make it a good idea. What is your typical server infrastructure? We use bare machines and had kernel panics very rarely (only with experimental MACVLAN). We did not 'get away' with anything. We have been using Docker for over 2 years, and LXC much more and know how to handle mounted directories, it is not a rocket science. We use…

> They are often outdated, we mostly get one of the latest builts, and in some cases Snapshot builds,

That's a very usual thing to say about databases. For critical and commercially supported things such as your relational databases, nobody runs snapshot builds. You run whatever builds your vendor supports, and for all those you mentioned (and most other vendors) that is going to be native packages.

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#26

Post by fh973 »

otterley wrote: post #8
CSDude wrote: post #5

> Again, well accepted principle that “thou shalt not run a database inside a container”. Don’t do it, end of story. Sorry, but this is really a bad advice. We have ran and contine to run various databases inside Docker including MySQL, PostgRedis, Cassandra, Elastic Search, RethinkDB even HDFS with proper user rights and configuration. We can maintain the state just as fine. If your only problem is to move the data,…

What problem does containers solve for you for this particular part of your infrastructure? Native storage software packages are available for mainstream OSes that handle dependencies via the native package manager. And since the storage they manage is usually directly attached, nodes that run this software are infrequently migrated. And this software is infrequently upgraded under the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't…

A good reason for running a database in a container is fault tolerance without setting up database replication.

Put your database in a container, let it store its data on a network storage system (like a distributed file system). The container scheduler makes sure it gets rescheduled when the node goes down.

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#27

Post by conradk »

Can anyone comment on how rkt compares to Docker regarding the issues from this article ? And how does rkt compare to Docker in production in your experience ?

I've been using Docker in production for a single server website and have had very few issues. I do like how easy it is to reproduce a working environnement with a "docker build" though.

That being said, I think that just using Ansible on a server is probably an easier and more reliable solution. Ansible is battle tested and allows to have reproducible environments too.

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#28

Post by DigitalJack »

chousuke wrote: post #12
ben_jones wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone considering using Docker for production infrastructure I'd love to hear from a docker expert what their thoughts are on the following observations: * Docker encourages fully disposable infrastructure * Docker containers can be more secure then traditional environments * Docker provides for indempotent environments agnostic of hardware concerns etc * Container management software (Kubernetes, etc.) makes Do…

I'm not sure if I qualify as a docker expert, but I feel like I need to comment on these... Firstly, I think it is correct that docker encourages disposable infrastructure, because your docker setup basically must be able to recover from the loss of a container. I think it would not be sane to expect your containers to "just keep working". Regarding security, I don't think Docker provides much other than the illusion…

'I think it would not be sane to expect your containers to "just keep working".'

Why?

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#29

Post by DigitalJack »

conradk wrote: post #27

Can anyone comment on how rkt compares to Docker regarding the issues from this article ? And how does rkt compare to Docker in production in your experience ? I've been using Docker in production for a single server website and have had very few issues. I do like how easy it is to reproduce a working environnement with a "docker build" though. That being said, I think that just using Ansible on a server is probably…

Is ansible still python 2.7 only?

Re: Docker in Production: A retort

#30

Post by paulddraper »

otterley wrote: post #8
CSDude wrote: post #5

> Again, well accepted principle that “thou shalt not run a database inside a container”. Don’t do it, end of story. Sorry, but this is really a bad advice. We have ran and contine to run various databases inside Docker including MySQL, PostgRedis, Cassandra, Elastic Search, RethinkDB even HDFS with proper user rights and configuration. We can maintain the state just as fine. If your only problem is to move the data,…

What problem does containers solve for you for this particular part of your infrastructure? Native storage software packages are available for mainstream OSes that handle dependencies via the native package manager. And since the storage they manage is usually directly attached, nodes that run this software are infrequently migrated. And this software is infrequently upgraded under the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't…

I update my database servers for the same reason I update my proxy servers: more features, security fixes, better performance, increased stability.
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