Virtualization is a very demanded and developing direction in the IT area. It helps you to use system resources more efficient. There are a lot of tools help to configure virtual services. The numbers of tools for managing, deploying and developing applications expands almost every day.
Vagrant and Docker are the most demanded of them. Now, let’s figure out the reasons for using both tools.
What you can receive from Docker and Vagrant?
Vagrant is a virtual machine (VM) manager used to build and configure a reproducible and portable work environment. With Vagrant you could create a VM based on your operating system (OS), and then shift it to different carriers. The global disadvantage of this approach is the only one VM can be on each carrier. Also, Vagrant needs much more resources than Docker because of creating a VM.
Docker is a tool for creating, deploying, shipping, and running applications. While Vagrant creates VMs, Docker creates containers by sharing of OS’s core. This process is called containerization. You can put in the container all the needed software, drivers, runtime and dependencies, etc. and you don’t need to create the whole VM, unlike Vagrant do. This dramatically increases the work speed and load time.
Both systems create the virtual environment on a different OS, like Windows, macOS, Linux, and others. Recently, Vagrant started to provide Docker on their own system, so you can use both tools almost simultaneously.
How virtualization can be useful for you?
There are a couple of common reasons to use virtualization tools. These instruments will suit you if you need to:
- deploy your project on multiple OS;
- transfer your project to another carrier physically;
- save and upload on VM backups and snapshots;
- build an internal network of VMs.
As you can see, virtualization is quite an efficient instrument. But why use Vagrant with Docker then? These are the high-rated virtualization software. Each tool has own features and you can choose which will be better for your case.
Wrapup: what tool choose for virtualization?
Sometimes you need to share your project, transfer it into other surroundings or just take it with you for remote work, for example. Virtualization of your work could help you in these cases. There are a lot of instruments for virtualization implementation. Why use Docker and Vagrant then? These tools are very reliable. Both are used for a long time, both are cross-platform.
The best way to choose the right tool for your own project is to ask experts in this field.