How Docker Development setup Can Significantly Reduce Costs for Businesses

In today's world, physical installations of software on machines are becoming a thing of the past. With the rise of containerization technologies like Docker, applications are now being deployed across development, QA, and production environments using containers based on Docker images. This article focuses on optimizing development setups, particularly in development environments, using Docker.

There's been ongoing debate about whether Docker should be installed as root or non-root. In many organizations, Docker is still installed as root on Linux, Unix, or mac OS machines, especially when used by development teams. This often necessitates granting admin rights to the team, which can introduce security vulnerabilities. However, by setting up Docker as a non-root user, there's no need to add users to the sudoers list, thereby reducing potential security risks.

The entire development setup can be managed using Docker, with only a few exceptions. The benefits are significant: it's easy to use, free, time-efficient, and resource-efficient. The ideal approach is to manage all services using a docker-compose.yml file. You can start all services with a simple docker-compose up and stop them with docker-compose down. Be sure to use volumes to persist data between sessions.

Recently, I set up an entire development environment on Ubuntu 24 using Docker as a non-root user with almost 40 resources, and it worked perfectly without requiring sudo privileges. For editors like Eclipse, VS Code, or Spring Tool Suite (STS), no sudo privileges are necessary. This approach also works seamlessly with Kubernetes (K8s).

Steps to Set Up Docker as a Non-Root User:

bash

sudo chown chandra:chandra /usr/bin/docker

sudo chown chandra:chandra /etc/docker/

sudo chown chandra:chandra /usr/libexec/docker/

sudo chown chandra:chandra /var/run/docker.sock

sudo chmod 755 -R /etc/docker/

sudo chmod 755 -R /var/run/docker.sock

Must watch --Save development cost through emulator (Big query- GCP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBIGGmkPNhA&t=435s

Conclusion:

By adopting this Java development setup, you can achieve near-zero costs with optimal resource usage. Even a setup with 16GB RAM and 7 CPUs is more than sufficient. If you’re looking for a cost-effective and efficient development setup, feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading!