16  Containerization with Docker

• Docker = sets up a virtual computer (e.g. install software)

  • Then saves the resulting state of the virtual computer = “image”

  • Container = running instance of an image

  • An image can be transferred and executed on any machine that has Docker installed

  • Containers = lightweight

    • Start rapidly

    • Run with little overhead

    • Do no need much storage space

Note

Containers achieve this by reusing large parts of the host operating system.

Important

Software versions should be precisely documented to ensure full computational reproducibility.

Rocker Project

• Docker images of pre-configured selected version of R from MRAN

• rocker/verse = RStudio and tidyverse

• liftR = way to automatically identify dependencies and automatically generate a Docker image