Spinning up and tearing down environments with Docker

The final topic we will cover in our exploration of integration and end-to-end testing is containerization using the popular technology known as Docker. It provides us with the ability to start up applications in our local and remote environments in the same way.

Docker gives developers the confidence that their applications will behave in the same way across environments, which is particularly useful for managing and deploying test environments.

Fundamentals of Docker

A container is a unit of software that bundles up code and all its dependencies, enabling us to run it in multiple environments. The specification of the container is known as a container image. Docker Engine interprets the specification of container images and turns them into containers.

Containerization versus virtualization

Virtualization refers to running multiple operating systems on a single machine. Containerization refers to running multiple...