There is a LOT of talk about containerization today, and about Docker in particular. At least in the Microsoft world. The rest of the world has been using it for quite a while, but seeing that it is mostly Linux based, it has had some problems getting traction with Microsoft developers. But that is about to change. The technology raises a lot of questions though. What is it? Why is it awesome? How do I get started? How can it help me? Is it just for huge companies like Netflix? Is there any reason to use it if you aren't running a 100+ node cluster? Will it blend?

All of those are valid questions when you are getting started, but once you get over the initial "what is it?" you quickly get into "that is really cool" and "why hasn't anyone told me about this before." And you realize that there are a lot of reasons to go further and learn more.

This session will give you an introduction to Docker, what it is and what it does, and then a walkthrough of how to get started with it. You will get to see the tools you need, the initial commands you need to know, as well as some demos showing some of the cool things you can easily do with Docker. Taking you from "what is it?" to "this is how you set up a cluster with several containers in minutes" in an hour-ish.

You will learn:

• What Docker is, and what features it offers
• How to start Docker containers, using both off the shelf images and custom built images
• How to use Docker and docker-compose to start up a development environment in seconds