Design & Install Docker Datacenter

What’s in this guide?

This guide does not cover the basic topics covered in my previous blog post-Introducing Docker Datacenter.

In that post I answer the following questions:

• What is Docker Datacenter?
• Who is Docker Datacenter for?
• How do I test Docker Datacenter?
• How do I access Docker Enterprise Edition?

Who’s this guide for?

You should:

• Have a basic understanding of what dockers are.
• Be familiar with your target operating system.

For a quick primer into the world of dockers see this guide

How do I use this guide?

Docker is constantly being updated. And although you are not required to always use the latest version, there are some things you should be aware of before reading this guide.

1. This guide is based on existing documentation for the latest current version of Docker Datacenter components as of this writing (UCP 2.2 & DTR 2.3). So be aware that the current version could be higher.
2. If you notice a link to an official doc at https://docs.docker.com/ whose URL includes a version that is below the current release of either UCP or DTR, you can usually modify the URL to change the version number to the newer version to get the latest version of the documentation.
3. The Architecture and Best Practices guide is a good resource and is mentioned in this article frequently. But, beware that some of the information in that guide may be outdated. So take it with a grain of salt.
4. Whenever you see a command with the format docker/somedocker some command it means that this is a ‘container command’ and should be called from a docker container using a format similar to docker run -it --rm docker/somedocker some command
5. The terms controller and manager are interchangeable. They both mean a node that hosts a web dashboard and delegates tasks to agents/workers. By the way, the terms agent and worker are interchangeable too.
6. Note that due to the constant updates your UI might look slightly different than what is shown in the screen-shots of both this guide and the official guide.

What’s in a Docker Datacenter?

Before you begin your installation, it will be invaluable to familiarize yourself with the basic architecture of DDC.

DDC Consists essentially of 3 parts:

1. Universal Control Plane (UCP) Manager(s): serves main UI and handles UI authentication for DTR
2. Docker Trusted Repository (DTR) Manager(s): serves DTR UI and provides images used by UCP
3. UCP Workers: nodes that manage containers based on UCP Manager instructions

UCP Managers and DTR Managers both support High availability (HA) for 3+ nodes of each and nodes that run DTR can also run UCP Workers (but should not run UCP Managers).