5 Reasons Why Software Developers Should Be Using Docker Hub:

Software development as a whole can often be a very complex procedure because there are so many aspects to look at. And with so many resources collaborating together on a single product, it can often lead to complications.

Let’s use an example to look at the situation; you have a front-end developer who’s written their code on their top-of-the-line development laptop. The developer has their own environment in which they wrote the code. When they send this code forward to another developer, they might work on it in another environment. The code written by the first developer, might not work in the second developer’s environment as efficiently, thus compromising the overall application’s reliability.

This is where Containerization comes in. Containerization in Docker allows your code and all its respective dependencies to be packaged in the form of a single image. This is different from a virtual machine since Docker Hub is completely cloud-based and has no hardware hypervisor involved. It allows developers to ship an application in form of a single package with all its needful parts. It gives a developer the ease of mind that their application will run smoothly on another Linux machine; despite any customized settings the machine may have.

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If you’re a software developer who isn’t currently utilizing a cloud-based repository like Docker Hub, here are 5 reasons for you to move toward it:

1.      Lesser Costs:

If you have to convince your entire team to port towards Docker, the first thing your manager will ask you is how much value will it bring. How about reduced costs? Every business operates on one principle; increasing profitability. And what do lesser costs equate to? Yes, that’s correct; Higher profitability!

For starters, you’ll see a reduction in infrastructure costs through its implementation; There’s going to be lesser resources needed to run an application with it. This means lesser server costs and also means lesser people. You can get more done even if you’re a smaller team.

2.      Consistency & Standardization:

This is by far one of the best reasons to port toward a cloud-based repository. By standardizing your environments, you can count on higher productivity to come into play. With repeatable environments, you’re able to make changes on the fly to a Docker image. Not only that, but you’ve also got an entire version history track. So let’s say that if a single change broke your entire application, you can revert this change within a matter of seconds! Think of the time you’d be able to save on overall testing or fixing bugs and instead delegate the same time towards building more features.

3.      Compatibility:

If you’re a developer, you’ve probably lost count of how many times you’ve had to justify to your QA that half the bugs they’ve reported weren’t there in your machine. Since Docker utilizes images, they’ll run just how they’re supposed to, regardless of whichever machine they’re run on. As a developer, you won’t have to invest as much time as you are right now in setting up environments or debugging them for that matter. You’ll have a codebase that takes a lot less time to set up. This also means lesser hurdles in maintenance.

4.      Repositories & Deployment:

Apart from creating private, containerized versions of an application you’re building, you also have access to an entire repository of containerized open-source apps. You’ve got Docker images that are updated regularly and have been well-curated, any documentation you need, and access to data sources.

The process is rather swift and seamless. It typically takes a few seconds to pull or push any Docker images from or to the repository. Moreover, any images you create can be used from the development stage of your application till it goes live to production in an automated manner. If you have to make any upgrades to an already existing container, you can make them and test them right there. Once done, you can simply apply the same changes to all your containers. Docker Hub takes away all the hassle when it comes to deployment.

5.      Exposure Limitations & Security:

Security threats are definitely minimized with Docker Hub. Any given container doesn’t have access to what’s happening inside of another container. This means you can create your own private repositories and no doubt, gain better control over the management and overall flow of traffic.

Wrapping Up:

Containerization is most definitely the future of software development. It’s been predicted that by the year 2025, the number of organizations running containers will rise up to 85% as opposed to the year 2020, where this number was below 30%.