Clarity on Docker environments in production

General
1

I am looking at what is the supported systems for Docker in a production environment.

We are currently using Docker Desktop for our dev machines but want to be able to maintain so of our apps on containers in production. These apps are all intranet based and we are not able to use cloud based solutions. We also would like to stay on Windows as our IT admin will only support Windows OS.

I see that Docker Desktop is only used for developer use but I want to know what Windows users can use for running containers via something like a windows service.

I tried my hand at investigating on my own but am now left more confused than before when looking at CE and EE and some of this not being supported anymore. We like the simplicity of compose but we are willing to go to swarm if needed. Kubernetes seems like overkill for what we have but maybe I’m wrong.

I really enjoy docker and want to do more with it but right now we have a lot to work through before we can use it for what we want.

2

Nowadays production systems with containers are usually run on Linux. Docker runs native on Linux.

It might be time for your Windows system admin to take a Linux admin course :slightly_smiling_face:

On Windows you would probably need Docker Desktop, WSL (tutorial) or a VM with Linux. But that’s more hoops to jump through and still Linux as base.

3

To extend on the response of @bluepuma77: it really depends on whether you want to run Windows containers, or Linux container.

As far as I am aware Moby can be used on Windows Server to run Windows Containers. If you want to use Linux-Containers, you could check if the Mirantis Container Runtime supports running Linux-Containers on Windows Server. Mirantis bought the Docker Enterprise offering a couple of years ago. I am sure you can reach out them and discuss whether their offering is actually a fit for your use-case.

4

Thank you both for the information. I’ll check into Mirantis.