Blog Insights
Docker for Nonprofits: Bringing Speed, Agility and Security to Your Mission

June 25, 2019

As mission-driven nonprofit organizations expand their digital reach online, ensuring that all platforms and tools are running effectively is essential. As traffic and engagement increase in one area or another, it’s crucial that all tools continue to run correctly. This is where Docker comes in.

Speed, agility, security. These three words that have marked the evolution of technology in recent years. In the era of digital transformation, more than requirements on any technology project, these words have transformed into pursuits for developers, engineers, and architects. Sometimes, to achieve speed, sacrifices have been made on agility; or security has in the end overtaken agility and speed alike. In the last few years, Docker has pushed us one big step closer to reaching these pursuits that have seemed so elusive for so long. Docker is a groundbreaking programming tool that has sparked a new wave of the use of “containers”, environments that offer a way to package applications with all their parts or dependencies while keeping them isolated, either individually or in groups, from the system they run on. Docker is a platform that stands between the containers and the host operating system, transforming them into standard units of software for development, shipment, and deployment. Docker is the engine that powers these applications and while its implications are many, its simple pursuit of the aforementioned goals are more evident than ever.

Docker for speed

Docker allows developers to quickly move applications from development environments into production and includes testing. Moreover, it can quickly react to pressing needs for expansion, redistribution of resources and, of course, to any operational issues that may arise unexpectedly. Since these environments are predictable and controllable, developers can focus on coding instead of the lengthy processes of debugging systems and applications to make them work. Imagine a scenario in which your nonprofit organization is, in the same week, deploying a new “user feedback database” application, as well as launching a new program platform. Both could be monumental tasks, packed with dark corners of installation, tests, debugging, etc. Docker allows your developers and system administrators to easily pack containers with everything they need to conquer both tasks without delay. Simply put, we are literally talking about “plug and play” operations.

Docker for agility

Docker allows developers to build container images from simple code instructions, which means that your applications are able to run on any operating system. Thanks to Docker, containers are now code that can be shared, moved and reproduced. Organizations can research, develop, test and launch new applications with ease and certainty in amazingly short periods of time. All this flexibility constitutes a powerful tool in an ever-changing and ultra-competitive technology space.

Docker for security

Containers are isolated environments, so if you organize your system with a proper layer of permissions and restrictions, if ever there was a security concern that an external source tries to gain access to a container, this security issue cannot cross over into other areas. There are of course no infallible measures against cyber attacks; however, your system’s integrity lies in how actively your organization thinks and acts towards it. Forum One is in the process of implementing Docker both internally as well as for its mission-driven client organizations. This allows us to offer important causes speed, agility and security to deploy relevant applications. Along with our talented teams, Docker is an excellent fit for making a digital transformation a smoother process!

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