Why Docker for Automation and Analytics

Since the introduction of Docker and its rapid growth, technologies have focused on continuous delivery, integration, etc. or orchestration of containers with two main leaders Kubernetes and Swarm. In early 2015, Activeeon has started working on building more and more integrated features to fit its unique use cases and leverage the core values of containers.

Indeed, most Activeeon users support business line needs for scheduling regular jobs, automating processes, improving the speed of analytics, etc. The objective is to provide consistent and reliable execution no matter the environment. Activeeon and Docker consequently share the same goal and benefit from each other technology.

Docker for Scheduling, Automation, Analytics, etc.

With the rapid growth of the cloud, the computing resource is evolving and may impact the actual execution. Activeeon has an edge to face this trend since it includes a Resource Manager and focus on abstracting away the resource. With Docker containers, Activeeon also enables business lines to execute their jobs within an environment containing the relevant libraries. Thus, it also leverages the values of consistency, reliability and fast startup time from Docker.

To clarify, if a job executes once a semester and require specific packages, Activeeon will abstract away the computing resource and libraries will be included in a specific Docker image. IT operation can then change provider and/or leverage multi-cloud strategies without impacting the job execution.

In conclusion, with Docker and Activeeon, business line users focus on automating and improving time to result in their processes and analytics while IT operation is evolving.

Let’s get technical now

Container as a Portable Environment

The main recommended way to use Docker with Activeeon solution is setting up the environment you need for execution in the fork environment. In this case, the scheduler will execute the processes in the selected container and close it once the process is completed.

Users

• Benefit from a reproducible custom environment on any host
• Leverage images from docker hub and private registries
• Benefit all Activeeon’s features to share files, send variables, chain applications, ...

Container Governance for IT

Activeeon can setup a container as a resource. It will be seen within the Resource Manager as an independent resource.

Users

• Can isolate the execution from the host
• Can control all the libraries within the container
• Benefit from container governance
• Can automate the resource provisioning

Docker compose

Finally, Activeeon also includes a specific docker-compose task which enables users to run already containerized applications or entire services.

Docker EE & Activeeon

Finally, with Docker EE, companies can benefit from even more security.

1. It includes a complete RBAC to access the various images within their registry.
2. Images are scanned for vulnerabilities and IT can proactively take actions against potential threats.
3. Secrets are transferred to relevant resources wisely which avoids unnecessary copies.

Get started with Activeeon and check our documentation on how to use containers.