While WebCenter Sites has had a Docker image available for a couple of years now, the official WebCenter Content Docker image for 12.2.1.4 is now available as of February 2021.
https://github.com/oracle/docker-images/tree/main/OracleWebCenterContent
The History of Virtualization—
The first major leap in virtualization came many years ago, with the release of the Hypervisor by VMWare. This methodology, still extensively used across businesses, effectively allows users to dice up larger pieces of hardware into smaller environments with their own computing layer.
The downside to this approach was that every machine had to have its own individual operating system. In comparison to the next level of virtualization to be released (Docker), the Hyper-V model of virtualization is incredibly expensive and resource-consuming. For example, using the diagram above, if we were running 3 instances of Windows Server 64-bit, we would be consuming a minimum of 6GB of RAM, 60GB of disk space, CPU resources, and a multitude of Windows licenses.
With Docker, the need for an OS on each individual VM is negated. Docker uses something called the ‘Docker Daemon’ to manage ‘containers’ on the host machine. The docker daemon is a process that runs on the base machine that utilizes namespaces and control groups to control resource assignment to a process (application) that runs within a container. Hyper-V on the other hand is a piece of software that interprets information from isolated desktop environments stored within a file.
Note: Containers also are available with kernels at the container level, for additional security.
Why should you use Docker with WebCenter?—
Here at Inspired ECM, we have had clients with dozens of bare metal WebCenter environments. Along with these environments, came the additional overhead of performing standard security checks weekly, performing OS based patches, and maintaining the OS configuration on each machine. Additionally, hours upon hours of labor were dedicated to each host ensuring they met and maintained the Oracle Fusion Middleware pre-requisites.
Enterprises with similar infrastructures can expect to reap significant savings from the reduced maintenance, reduced labor, and the reduction in system resources to their enterprise applications.
Is your organization looking to upgrade to WebCenter 12c or to containerized WebCenter environments? Contact us to learn how Inspired ECM can optimize your organization’s ECM strategy with containers.
