In the technical field, each and every developer has heard about Docker and Docker containers. Docker is mainly a tool that is used for shipping and running applications and it also uses OS-level virtualization to deliver this software in packages which are called containers. One of the most common problems of the developers is they don’t have an idea about the best docker containers that are used.
Therefore, in this article, detailed knowledge has been provided about the docker containers and the top 10 docker containers that are used by the developer to maintain efficiency while using Docker.
What are Docker containers?
A Docker container is particularly an open-source software development platform that has the main advantage of packaging applications in the containers which allows them to be portable to any system that is running in Windows operating system or Linux. Therefore, Docker is used to provide the ability to run the application in a loosely isolated environment which is known as a container. The main advantage of Docker containers is that the flexibility of Docker containers is based on portability, ease of deployment, and smaller size when compared to the virtual machines.
Top 10 Docker Containers that Every Developer Should Know
There are multiple Docker containers that are used by the developers but some of the Docker containers make the development efficient by its features. Some of the top 10 Docker containers are mentioned below:
1. Alpine
Alpine is one of the docker containers that consist of a minimal image which is based on Alpine Linux with a package index with only 5 MB in size and built on the BusyBox. The Alpine-docker images are much smaller than the standard images as they consist of bare essentials which are needed to run the apps. The image has access to the package repository much more complete than the other BusyBox which are based on the images. Alpine Linux is a lightweight good image base for the utilities and the production apps which is designed to be small and secure.
2. Nginx
Nginx is an open-source docker system that is a reverse proxy server, an origin server and a load balancer. Nginx runs on the MacOS X, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, BSD variants and many more. Nginx also has a proof of concept port for Microsoft Windows, it is designed to be a throwaway container and the base to build the other images. It is one of the powerful web servers that allows the Devops team to host the custom web applications in docker. It enables the software developers to easily develop and run the applications.
3. BusyBox
BusyBox is one of the good docker containers which comes in between 1 and 5 Mb in on-disk size, it is a very good ingredient which is used to craft the space-efficient distributions which combine many common UNX utilities into a single small executable. The utilities consist of very fewer options than the full-featured GNU, therefore the included options provide some great functionalities and behave like the GNU counterparts. Hence BusyBox provides a complete environment for the embedded and small systems.
BusyBox combines all the small versions of many common UNIX utilities into the small executable which provides replacements for most of the utilities.
4. Redis
Redis is an open source platform which is particularly a networked data store with the optional durability. Redis is a highly available in memory database which is best for local development, it also also used to store the metadata about the users profiles for viewing the histories, authentications informations for millions of users and manifest the files to enable the CDNs to stream videos to the millions of desktop and mobile users at a period of time. Redis also offers exceptional reliability with 99.9 percent of SLA.
5. Apache httpd
Apache httpd is an open source web server application which is an important part in the initial growth of the Internet. This image only consists of Apache httpd with the defaults from the upstream. It is particularly used for handling the requests and delivering them a better static content. It allows the DevOps teams to host the custom website applications in Docker. The Apache HTTP container images are based on the Red Hat Software collection and intended for the Openshift and the general usage.
6. Memcached
Memcached is a type of distributed memory caching system and its APIs provide a big hash table all across several machines. Older data is purged in the least which is recently used to order when the table is full. Memcached applications are usually layer requests as well as the additions into the RAM before retiring on the slower backing store. Therefore, Memcached is famous for database query results caching, web page caching, API caching, session caching and caching of objects such as files, images and metadata. Its simple design promotes quick deployment and solves multiple problems which are facing large data caches.
7. MariaDB
MariaDB is one of the famous open source database servers which is developed by MySQL developers. MariaDB is used for multiple purposes such as e-commerce, data warehousing, enterprise-level features and logging applications. It provides enterprises cloud managed database and open source database services to support the mission critical deployments, scalability and many more. It is designed as a drop in replacement of MySQL with multiple features.
8. RabbitMQ
RabbitMQ is an open source message broker software which implements the advanced message queuing protocol. RabbitMQ stores data which is based on the “Node Name” which defaults to the hostname. RabbitMQ is extended with the plug-in architecture to support the streaming text oriented messaging protocols, MQ telemetry transport and other protocols. It is a type of message broker software which originally implemented the Advanced message queuing protocols. RabbitMQ server is created on the Open Telecom Platform framework clustering and failover.
9. Traefix
Traefix is a type of HTTP reverse proxy and the load balancer to easily deploy the microservices. Traefix automatically integrates with the previous Docker infrastructure and configures itself dynamically. It is a type of modern cloud native HTTP which provides a strong support for the microservices and integrates with Docker. Kubernetes, Consul and Rancher. It requires minimal configuration and uses the automated service discovery to inject the routes to the backend services.
10. Python
Python incorporates modules which are exceptional dynamic typing, classes and high level data types. It works as an extension language for the applications needing a programming interface. Docker always supports the Python containers which use the import requests command. There are also various different images on Docker Hub that can accommodate such use cases.Therefore a developer advocates recently created an application which pulls COVID vaccination rates from Our World in Data’s public repository.
Conclusion
The Docker container is used to allow the developers to commit the changes to the Docker images and the version control them effectively. Therefore a right Docker container has many advantages and using the correct Docker container can make the work flexible for the developers. Thus in this article a detailed information has been provided about the Docker containers and the top 10 docker containers which are mainly used by the developers.
Top 10 Docker Container – FAQs
1. What do you mean by Docker containers?
A Docker container is an open source software development platform which mainly benefits is to package applications in containers which allows them to be portable to any system running in Windows operating system or Linux. Therefore Docker containers basically means that a container has no knowledge of your operating system, or your files. It runs on the environment provided to you by Docker Desktop.
2. Can Docker containers run on any of the operating systems ?
Docker image container can run on Windows and Linux, Linux images can run on Linux host while Windows images can only run on Window host. Docker builds the products which lets the users run containers in Linux, macOS and windows.
3. Why are Docker containers used ?
Docker containers are used as they are lightweight and contain everything which is needed to run the applications so that the developers don’t depend on what is installed on the host.
4. Name the top Docker containers which are used by developers?
There are multiple Docker containers which are used by the developers but some of the docker containers are best in use. Some of the top docker containers are- Alpine, Nginx, BusyBox, Redis, Apache httpd, Memcached, MariaDB, RabbitMQ, Traefix and Python.
