The Hyve’s Glowing Bear team has introduced the option to install Glowing Bear by using Docker. Why? It resolves a lot of issues developers often encounter when deploying an application on multiple platforms.
When installing Glowing Bear and its accompanying data warehouse, transMART 17.1, it does not involve the installation of a single piece of code but an entire software stack: front-end components, back-end components, databases, servers, libraries and other environment dependent components. Therefore, setting up transMART and Glowing Bear for a new client can easily take a day or more.
Developers also need to make sure that all software components work on a wide range of operating systems and versions (typically different brands and versions of Linux, potentially also Windows). Developers often encounter the problem that they write a new code and it works on their system, but the same code does not work in the testing environment. Increasingly complex applications mean that developers in many organisations spend more and more time making sure that new or updated software components work on every possible platform.
Standard containers
Docker solves this problem of an application working on one platform and not working on other. How? By using standard containers to package, ship and deliver software components. To help understand how it works, the company compares its services with freight transport and the shipping industry. The goods that are transported by sea, road and rail come in many different shapes and sizes. Big and small, tough and fragile, solid and liquid. From furniture and cars, fruit and veg, to clothes and toys. The introduction of standard shipping containers made the handing of such a wide range of goods easy, efficient and cheap.
By wrapping software components into standardized containers -dockerizing the files- a developer can be sure all files are transferred correctly. Every platform can handle the container, indeed the docker application is able to directly run it.
Installation
The Hyve created a collection of Docker scripts for Glowing Bear (one for each component) and a docker-compose script. The docker-compose script is like a recipe where the Docker scripts are individual steps of the recipe. This allows you to install Glowing Bear and its components. At the same time, there is the option to select and install only a number of components, for example when tranSMART and other components already up and running and only updated version of Glowing Bear needs to be installed.
The traditional installation method for Glowing Bear will remain available for now, but Docker might soon become the golden standard given the advantages.
Want to know how your company can benefit from Docker for Glowing Bear, feel free to contact The Hyve’s experts.
