Introducing Docker

Docker (www.docker.com) has been a major force behind popularizing the containerization of applications. Docker is to containers what Google is to search engines. Sometimes, people even use containers and Docker as synonyms. Microsoft has partnered with Docker and is actively contributing to the Docker platform and tools in open source. This makes Docker important for us as .NET developers.

Docker is a very important topic and will be significant enough to learn for any serious .NET developer. However, due to time and scope constraints, we will just scratch the surface of the ecosystem of Docker here. We strongly recommend that you read through the Docker books made available by Packt Publishing.

If you want to safely try and learn Docker without even installing it on your machine, you can do so with https://KataCoda.com.

Now let's focus on some of the terminologies and tools of the Docker platform. This will be essential for our next section:

Let's look into the individual components of the Docker ecosystem; let's try to understand one of the ways in which the Docker workflow makes sense in the software development life cycle.