FAQ

How does Ochopod differ from Docker Swarm or Compose ?

Ochopod goes beyond Swarm and Compose. For one thing we rely on Mesos for resourcing and provisioning containers on a fleet of hosts (containers which may or may not be Docker based by the way). We also do not rely on container specific features such as links and allow for more generic clustering (e.g your containers will connect to other containers running - possibly on remote hosts - using their remapped ports). Ochopod also provides lookup and directory capabilities on its own.

Now the big functional difference is that you can express all your clustering logic in Python and go as crazy (or minimalist) as you want. This is how we let you for instance cluster a containerized Zookeeper ensemble over multiple hosts.

So in a nutshell we provide the same general feature set except you can customize how you need to cluster things together and swap out parts of the underlying technology stack (resourcing framework, container engine and so on) to suit your needs.

Is Ochopod bound to Docker ?

No it’s not. The containerization technology used to run Ochopod does not really matter. You could run Ochopod using a Rocket platform for instance.

How do I get Ochopod in my containers ?

Just include the module in your container image and set it up ! You can that way build a base image that suits your needs the best. You just need to install Python 2.7.

Do I need Mesos to take advantage of Ochopod ?

No you don’t. Ochopod only relies on Zookeeper for synchronization but can be run anywhere, even on your workstation. You could use Yarn for instance and have it run a Docker container that then invokes Ochopod.

Do I need to use Ochopod on Amazon EC2 ?

Not at all. Ochopod is not tied to any specific environment. You could totally run Ochopod over a cluster of bare-metal resources if you wanted to. The only constraint is to be able to find out where you are running from and where your synchronization Zookeeper ensemble is.

Does Ochopod provision resources ?

No. Ochopod simply allows several Docker containers to coordinate their configuration. Provisioning and resourcing are performed one level down, for instance by letting Marathon cooperate with Mesos to run your containers.

Can I perform elastic scaling with Ochopod ?

Yes, you can at the pod level. You could for instance dynamically leverage Marathon to scale your applications up depending on some metrics. You could also do it one level lower and have your infrastructure scale the Mesos cluster up by physically adding new slaves. This is however not linked to Ochopod directly.

Can I run Ochopod to do Windows stuff ?

Well, if you can find a suitable containerization technology dealing with Windows, it’s a yes.