By: David Kennedy, PhD (https://doi.org/10.18116/dt9g-f139)
Containers for running software are all the rage these days.
“Containers are a solution to the problem of how to get software to
run reliably when moved from one computing environment to
another.”1 Recently container solutions using
Docker2 and Singularity3 have
become very popular for neuroimaging applications. Containers are
important for software developers as it provides a means to
precisely control the execution environment of a software package,
and facilitate deployment across heterogeneous hardware platforms.
Containers are important for researchers, as it provides a precise
means to document the exact software environment and configuration
in order to support more reproducible computational analysis.
Many of the software resources at NITRC are now providing
containerized versions to their users. In addition, end users can
take their favorite software configurations and create custom
containers for their specific applications, which can then be
shared (for example, with the resulting publication) and reused in
order to replicate an identical workflow. New tools such as
NeuroDocker4 are easing the task of creating both
Docker and Singularity containers for the community.
The NITRC Computational Environment (NITRC-CE) has been at the
forefront of virtualization since 2012. We’re excited to
announce that a new option, NITRC-CE:Lite, will be available soon.
NITRC-CE:Lite will be a Docker player, configured for deployment on
the Amazon Web Services EC2 cloud computing environment, or as a
VirtualBox appliance. From the NITRC-CE:Lite instance, users will
have an easily deployable way to run pre-built docker images or
create new ones with their own Dockerfiles. The original
NITRC-CE service will be rebranded as NITRC-CE:Classic, and
continue to include an ever expanding range of software
configurations (click on our User Guide List of Installed
Packages).
As always, the NITRC team is excited to support the neuroimaging
community in these advancements in neuroimaging computation. Feel
free to reach out to the NITRC team for support of these and any
other related issues.
1 https://www.cio.com/article/2924995/software/what-are-containers-and-why-do-you-need-them.html
2 https://www.docker.com/
3 https://singularity.lbl.gov/
4 https://hub.docker.com/r/kaczmarj/neurodocker/
Quarterly Newsletter Article from July 10, 2018