Key concepts

This section provides a high level overview of Docker and BMC PATROL for Docker.

Docker overview

Docker is a platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. With Docker you can separate your applications from your infrastructure and treat your infrastructure like a managed application. Docker does this by combining a lightweight container virtualization platform with workflows and tooling that help you manage and deploy your applications.

The basic components of Docker are:

Docker registry: Docker registries hold images. These are public or private stores from which you upload or download images. 

Docker images: A Docker image is a read-only template. For example, an image could contain an Ubuntu operating system with Apache and your web application installed. Images are used to create Docker containers. 

Docker containers: Docker containers are similar to a directory. A Docker container holds everything that is needed for an application to run. Each container is created from a Docker image. Docker containers can be run, started, stopped, moved, and deleted. Each container is an isolated and secure application platform. 

BMC PATROL for Docker overview

BMC PATROL for Docker is a performance monitoring product that discovers and monitors your configured Docker environment. It contains monitor types and parameters that are used to analyze and manage the Docker resources. Version 1.0.00 of BMC PATROL for Docker enables you to monitor the following Docker entities:

• Docker hosts
• Docker containers

After you configure the Docker hosts, you can start monitoring your Docker environment. You can monitor the CPU, memory and network data usage of all the containers in the configured host.