Running Docker Desktop on user laptop

DWe had one of those mid-project requests to support laptop deployment for our web application (don’t you love it when that happens!)

Our app is composed of Linux Docker containers that we deploy to a number of Linux hosts.

The laptop deployment request was to provide the same functionality but on a Windows laptop.

I’ve had a play around with Docker for Windows (Docker Desktop now I think) and got a working app. However a couple of things trouble me…

  • The Docker Desktop does seem to be heavily based around the developer use case whereas we are going to be deploying this in production on laptops for non-technical users

  • Docker Desktop hasn’t been the most stable experience so far

Is this a recommended use case for Docker Desktop?

My other thought was to deploy this as a Linux VM which runs the Linux containers. I guess this may simplify things in one respect but feel I may need to fill in some of the gaps that Docker Desktop does already.

In particular we communicate with a SQL Server database which in this case would be deployed on the host OS. Using Docker Desktop we’ve managed via “docker.for.win.localhost” DNS magic which allows containers to connect to SQL on the host.

Any pointers/experience greatly appreciated