Containers are a solution to the problem of how to get software to run reliably when moved from one computing environment to another. This could be from a developer's laptop to a test environment, from a staging environment into production, and perhaps from a physical machine in a data centre to a virtual machine in a private or public cloud.
A container is a standard unit of software that packages up code and all its dependencies so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another. A container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries and settings.
To learn more, watch this webinar from Dr Marco de la Pierre from the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre about how to get started using Containers in Bioinformatics.
You'll hear an expert's overview of using containers on supercomputers and the Cloud, and learn from real life examples of simple, domain-agnostic use. Beginner level (command line familiarity required).
This is the first webinar in a series on containers in bioinformatics.