Docker Captain Take 5 – Nana Janashia

Docker Captains are select members of the community that are both experts in their field and are passionate about sharing their Docker knowledge with others. “Docker Captains Take 5” is a regular blog series where we get a closer look at our Captains and ask them the same broad set of questions ranging from what their best Docker tip is to whether they prefer cats or dogs (personally, we like whales and turtles over here). Today, we’re interviewing Nana who has been a Docker Captain since 2021. She runs the YouTube channel TechWorld with Nana and is based in Austria.

How/when did you first discover Docker?

In a project I was working on as a junior software developer. I joined a team developing an IoT system where they had selected some of the cool modern technologies and Docker was one of them. 

Since Docker was just one of the many technologies we were using in the project, and because of the project deadlines, I was only able to learn just bits and pieces of Docker concepts during the project implementation phase, instead of a proper thorough introduction right at the beginning. So it took me two years to get a good big picture understanding of Docker, where I felt confident I really knew the tool. 

From today’s perspective, I wish I had just worked through a 3-4 hour crash course and properly learned it at the beginning. 

What is your favorite Docker command?

`docker exec -it container-id` 

I use it a lot when playing around with containers, testing and debugging stuff. 

What is your top tip for working with Docker that others may not know?

Running docker scan to check for any vulnerabilities in your images. This can give you a lot of confidence to know what kind of images you are producing and deploying. 

What’s the coolest Docker demo you have done/seen ?

For my DevOps bootcamp I built a scenario, where: 

• I took a simple Nodejs application, dockerized it using a Dockerfile, 
• added docker-compose file to run a database service and the application with, 
• then configured a fully-automated CI/CD pipeline that
  • built the image from this Dockerfile, 
  • pushed it to a private Docker registry, 
  • then automatically incremented the docker image version in a docker-compose file, 
  • copied it to an EC2 server, with Docker already installed on 
  • and started the application and its database by running docker-compose up on the ec2 server 
  • and finally validate that the application was deployed and the endpoint was accessible. 

It was really fun to see how Docker can be integrated so well with all these different technologies 🙂

What have you worked on in the past six months that you’re particularly proud of?

A very challenging and rewarding project was creating a full K8s administrator course. The most difficult part was to structure the course in a way that would not be overwhelming. Because many of the k8s administration concepts are pretty advanced, my challenge was to explain them in a super easy way to help my students to really understand how K8s works in the background and be able to administer it. 

Our naive optimistic estimation of creating the course was pushed from 1 month to 3 months of working intensively on the course.   

Generally, I have learned new technologies and concepts every week for the last few months for my videos across Youtube and courses. This was sometimes very difficult, because it was just constantly deep diving into various technologies and concepts. 

What do you anticipate will be Docker’s biggest announcement this year?

Probably something related to Docker registry 🙂 

What are some personal goals for the next year with respect to the Docker community?

I already planned and am super excited about doing a complete update of my 3-hour Docker course on Youtube and Docker module in our bootcamp. Because so many great updates have been made to Docker, I want to include all those improvements and new features into my educational content. 

What talk would you most love to see at DockerCon 2022?

Learnings from various big real-life projects using Docker. What challenges they had to overcome related to Docker, how they did it. What improvements have impacted them the most and what remains some of the biggest challenges in regards to Docker till today. 

Looking to the distant future, what is the technology that you’re most excited about and that you think holds a lot of promise?

I’m excited to see how the whole DevSecOps space develops in the next few years. Security has been in the background traditionally, but with the popularity of DevOps I think we will see it shifting to the left and I’m excited to see new technologies that solve security issues on different levels. 

Rapid fire questions…

What new skill have you mastered during the pandemic?

I finally decided to start learning Kickboxing as a balance for sitting in front of the computer the whole time 🙂

Cats or Dogs?

Puppies 🐶

Salty, sour or sweet?

Sweet 🧁

Beach or mountains?

Beach with mountains around

Your most often used emoji?

💙 – docker & k8s colored heart 😀

DockerCon2022

Join us for DockerCon2022 on Tuesday, May 10. DockerCon is a free, one day virtual event that is a unique experience for developers and development teams who are building the next generation of modern applications. If you want to learn about how to go from code to cloud fast and how to solve your development challenges, DockerCon 2022 offers engaging live content to help you build, share and run your applications. Register today at https://www.docker.com/dockercon/