Kickstart With Azure Container Services

Introduction

This article will help you to learn about Dockers and working on it for Windows. This article is a continuation of Container Services in Azure.

Note

Go through the following article, before you move on to this one in order to understand what Azure Container Services are.

Azure Container Services and Creating a Container Host Virtual Machine.

What is Docker?

Docker allows us to package our application in a standardized unit for software development. It wraps a piece of software in a complete file system that contains everything needed to run, like code, run time, system libraries and system tools –  it deals with anything that can be installed on a Server. This Docker just makes sure that the software will always run the same, whatever may be the environment.

Docker is also available for MAC, Windows, Windows Server, Linux, AWS and for Azure. Here we will be working with Docker for Windows.

Tools to download

You should have Docker installed in your machine to run the Docker in Windows. Try downloading Docker from here for Windows.

Note

You should also have Windows 10 Pro installed on your machine to make sure that Docker can work because we will be dealing with Docker for Windows in this demo.

Start Docker for Windows

After the installation is completed for Docker, start Docker on your Windows machine. After the Docker is installed, you can find an icon at your window indicating what the Docker is running on, followed by a pop up success message with suggested next steps and a link for documentation.

Versions of Dock Engine, Compose and Machine

• Move to Command Prompt to check the versions of your Docker.
• Run cmd.exe now.

Note

You can use any interface as per your wish, like Command Prompt, PowerShell,  or anything as such.

• Use docker –version command to find the version of it.
• Use docker-compose –version for compose on docker.
• Use docker-machine –version for machine on docker.
  
  
  
  
  

Lets explore the application and run a few examples on Docker

Open a Command Prompt (cmd.exe) or a PowerShell window.

Run a few Docker commands, as shown below.

docker ps
docker version
docker info

You can also test pulling an image from Docker Hub and starting a container. Addirionally, you can even run an Ubuntu Container in a Bash Shell.

Once the Docker has started running on your machine, you can find a whale icon on your machine, as shown below.