Docker for HPC

With the recent release of Docker 1.0 and the broad industry backing from organizations such as Red Hat and IBM, it’s no wonder that interest in the use and application of this Linux container technology continues to grow. Docker is shipped with Red Hat Enterprise 7 and there exists a growing registry of Docker images for a wide variety of applications.

For those who unfamiliar with Docker, it’s essentially a container technology for the Linux platform, which leverages existing and well proven technologies such as control groups (cgroup), and LinuX Containers (LXC). Docker brings these technologies together and provides ease of setup, use and compelling efficiency.

The IBM Platform Computing team has recently announced the availability of the IBM Platform LSF and Docker integration, which is available as an open beta on Service Management Connect. Supplementing the release of the integration is a white paper which is focused on the suitability of Docker for high performance computing (HPC) and includes an easy to follow, real world example of how to run a Docker image under Platform LSF.

Happy tinkering!