A formal approach for Docker container deployment

Abstract

AbstractContainer‐based virtualization is becoming increasingly popular in the cloud industry, as it provides services to the client as per their requirements. Requirements of the user can be described in a configuration file. Cloud provider offers the services to the client using “pay‐as‐you go” model. Docker provides support to a cloud provider for the creation of a container, deployment of the container, and monitoring of services running inside a container on the host and guest system both. The creation and deployment of the container by Docker efficiently is a big challenge. In this paper, we capture the behavior of the container life cycle through process algebra (CCS) and properties of it as a formula using ‐calculus. Further we capture the behavior of deployment of the container on the host machine through CCS and its properties through the model ‐ calculus. We used model checking tool Concurrency Workbench of the New Century to verify the creation of the Docker container as well as deployment of it.