Extending IBM TADDM Discovery and Configuration Change Management to Docker Containers
Author: Manish Lakhani (Aricent - IBM's Development Partner for IBM TADDM))
The consumer of today has changed a lot since the age of the first Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Today, we are living in the world of Industry 4.0, where integrated computing, networking and physical processes are revolutionizing manufacturing. This has made the consumer more demanding than ever – they want performance driven products, they want variety, they want a fully integrated ecosystem and most importantly, they want everything now - at the speed of a nanosecond!
Digital technology is helping the consumer get what they want, whenever they want, and from wherever they want. It is transforming businesses and industries to serve consumers more effectively and efficiently. Ecommerce has changed the shopping experience, Online learning platforms have changed the education system, Digital diagnostic tools have changed health and wellness industry – the list is endless...
In an environment where speed is critical, technology developers require tools that allow them fast access to resources, minimize process overhead, and enable them to be more productive. This is where Docker comes in to assist developers in efficiently deploying the applications.
WHAT IS DOCKER?
Docker is an open platform that allows developers to build, ship and run applications quickly and easily. A Docker can separate applications from its infrastructure and treat the infrastructure like a managed application. A Docker container, which includes instances of images, can be deployed in seconds. The container holds everything needed for an application to run.
USING DOCKER
With Docker, developers can very easily create a new application rather than look for an existing application. Docker applications can run on a fraction of a server. There is the potential to have far more containers on a single server than one would have with a virtual infrastructure. However, this can quickly lead to a container sprawl. With container sprawl, an enterprise can quickly lose control of the container environment. That is why it is necessary to be prepared to manage Docker effectively, to control its applications and the sprawl of containers.
However, managing all the Docker containers and applications can become overwhelming. Adequately protecting and managing a large volume of containers may require another level of resources and capabilities.
MANAGING DOCKER
IBM TADDM application discovers Docker as a part of an overall cloud while controlling sprawl and infrastructure costs.
Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager (TADDM) is a configuration management tool that helps IT operations personnel ensure, maintain and improve application availability in an enterprise.
TADDM is primarily an application which maps out IT network infrastructure, getting complete information about each and every element (Application Discovery) and finds out the relationships between each (Application Dependency).
For example, using TADDM, we can easily find out that Application A accesses Database E which is running on server F and thus Application A’s dependency on server F.
TADDM’s new release - FP04, provides a suite of software that can detect and discover Docker clusters, hosts, host attributes, containers, and overlay networking stacks from the deployed Docker clusters or individual Docker hosts.
TADDM discovers the following Docker host elements:
- Generic information about the Docker Host
- Containers: List the Containers, Get the list of running processes in the Container, IP Addresses of the Containers
- Images: List Images
- Networks: List Networks, details regarding different types e.g. Host, Bridge, Macvlan, etc.
- Volumes: List Volumes
TADDM can also detect Docker Swarm and discover following Docker Swarm cluster elements:
- The number of Docker Hosts in the cluster
- Role of Docker Hosts – Swarm Manager, or, worker node
- Services: Configured Services for the swarm cluster
- Networks: List Networks for swarm cluster e.g. Overlay network
For more information about IBM TADDM 7.3 FP04, please go to the IBM Knowledge Center.
