Well not really ! Tuesday 25th saw the Belfast Java meetup event @ the Sunflower in Union Street. The nights topic ? Two things that have come to my attention this year – Docker and Springboot.
With Springboot being described as
Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade (JAVA) Spring based Applications that you can “just run”.
and Docker (from their site) being
Docker is the world’s leading software container platform. Developers use Docker to eliminate “works on my machine” problems when collaborating on code with co-workers. Operators use Docker to run and manage applications side-by-side in isolated containers to get better compute density. Enterprises use Docker to build agile software delivery pipelines to ship new features faster, more securely and with confidence for both Linux and Windows Server applications.
With refreshments courtesy of Boxfish – the speaker Hudson Mendes took us on a trip through the mechanics of Docker and Docker Containers and a couple of different build options (Dockerfile, Gradle and Maven) for a simple Springboot app.
Outlining the growth in Docker use it was interesting to get some background on a technology that I used as part of a training course on Kitura from Devslopes but didn’t really think much about as it just did what was required. The course covered enough about Docker to facilitate the course but I was curious about the other facets of Docker which Hudson covered – especially in terms of the container image sizes and the relative merits of the platforms that support Docker.
The windows platforms (10 and server 2016) and Linux were discussed and there was some further clarification from an attendee who may actually be from Docker(?) about image sizes and future developments. Indeed a Belfast Docker meetup was advised as imminent which was great news ! The open API which Docker presents was highlighted and some coverage of the various deployment options such Amazon ECS, Docker Swarm and Azure Container Service. Specifically Hudson mentioned his use of Jenkins in the case of build pipeline / continuous deployment.
I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and it has definitely encouraged me to look deeper into Docker and its role in application delivery