Docker And Chef union, difference

Question

What is the common part and the differences between docker and chef?

As I understand, docker can include chef, but actually I don't have an exact example how do the related to each other...

Answer 1

Chef is a configuration management software. It allows you to automate things like provision, manage, and configure infrastructure. You basically have a central place to manage your infrastructure as code. Think of it as a tool that can:

• Interact with multiple infrastructure provisioners (VMWare, AWS, ...)
• Manage and Install software on machines
• Deploy and start applications ...

Docker on the other hand is quite different. Simply put Docker is a technology to package your application with all of its dependencies in a sandbox which allows you to run the container anywhere since it is self-contained.

As I understand, docker can include chef, but actually I don't have an exact example how do the related to each other...

Nowadays it is very popular to package and distribute applications in docker container. Chef is also a program which can be packaged in a docker container. In fact the docker images for Chef already exist on Dockerhub. You can get Chef by running the docker container. This will make it easy to get Chef up and running without having to directly install it on your machine. This is what is meant by "docker can include chef".

On the other hand, a Docker container is also a runnable software from the persective of the OS. You can tell Chef to also run a docker container on a machine that chef is managing.

In conclusion, there is no overlap between Docker and Chef. Both tools are used side by side, each for a different purpose. Chef is for managing infrastructure and machines, whereas docker is for packaging, shipping and deploying applications in containers.