Building a Learning Lab Solution Using Docker

Presented by Aater Suleman

August 6th, 2015

Docker Austin Meetup

Today’s PresenterAater Suleman, PhD Co-Founder & CEO at Flux7

Faculty, University of Texas at Austin

Flux7: Cloud and DevOps SolutionsCloud and Devops for web teams

Enterprise DevOps management

AWSCompetencies

Partners

About Us

Headquarters in Austin, TX

30+ team members

Entire team is certified/accredited

Engineer run company with strong roots in system

architecture and design

Focused solely on AWS, IT automation, and DevOps

Key Differentiators

R&D FocusRapid

EngagementsCustomer Focus

Voted “Best AWS Consultant Partner”

“They are easy to work with, extremely agile and flexible, quick to respond and go over and beyond the required level of effort to make sure

every single activity is successful”Honorable mention: Cloud Technology PartnersThird shortlisted contestant: 2nd Watch

Strategic Partnerships

Docker foundation partner

Flux7 is a recognized leader in Docker implementations

Only partner to present an enterprise solution (Classified Ventures) at DockerCon 2014, the inaugural annual Docker conference.

A video of the presentation can be seen here http://bit.ly/1A4bzVQ

AWS Advanced Consulting Partner

Close collaboration with AWS

Our model of helping enterprises to maintain their own IT, instead of using managed services, mirrors the goals of AWS leaders

Goal

To Provide Hands On Corporate Training to 600 students on

software EDA tools at a top 5 EDA ISV

Technical Requirements

Secure environment

One workstation/student

Identical workstations

All workstations have training materials

Instructors have the ability to share new files during training

Challenges

600+ workstations with:

24 GB memory

8 vCPUs

Prerequisite software (RHEL, ~100 packages)

Course material (3-5 GB)

Options

Training laptops

Purchase 600 laptops

Image the laptops using PXE boot

Store and maintain the laptops for next session (6 months)

Virtual machines

Distribute VM images (30+ GB files)

Upgrade employee Laptops that didn’t meet the spec

Solution (in a nutshell)

Virtual Workstations

Spin up 100s of instances in AWS

Prepare a Docker image with all the software and materials

Setup private Docker registry

Download and run docker containers on all the instances

Solution Details

AWS architecture

Server detailsDocker

container setup

Automation/Orchestration

Access Dashboard

Admin Subnet

Instructor Subnet

Student subnet

NATAPILicenseservers

HQ

HTTPs trafficIP range: US-west-2https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json

Internet Gateway

Virtual Private Gateway

S3

Server

AWS m3.2xlarge instance

Amazon Linux running Docker daemon

cloud-init (user data) used to:

○ Set License environment variables○ Docker pull○ Docker run

Docker Container Setup

RHEL 6.5

Dockerfile to yum install the packages

NX 3.5 installed for remote desktop access

Automation

Create course○ Provide course name for tagging

Create instructor workstation○ Run a single EC2 instance for instructor to prepare the image

Save instructor workstation ○ Snapshot the Docker container the instructor is working on

Automation (cont’d)

Create class workstations ○ Create containers for the entire class given a list of users

Start/Stop class workstations ○ Start/stop containers for the entire class

Start/Stop student workstation ○ Start/stop container of just one user in the class

Access

NX files generated for each container

Users access the environment by downloading and running the NX file on their laptops

No need to run VMs, buy larger laptops, or pollute laptop with software not needed in the future

Dashboard

Drupal-based Dashboard with Active Directory Integration

Role Class Instructor Student

AdminCreate class

Create/terminate class instances Assign instructors

Instructor Start/stop class instancesCreate instructor instance

Save instructor instanceStart/stop student instances

StudentStart/stop student instance

Download NX file to access workstation

Tear Down

Terminate Class instances for all classes

Delete the Cloudformation Stack

Revamp (6 months)

Create CloudFormation stack

Create IPSec tunnel

Restart Drupal server

IT Guys

Benefits

Saved the laptop upgrades

No effort invested in preparing machines

No maintenance in supporting variety of laptops

No requests from instructors and students to check setup

Instructors

Benefits

Agility - could change the material till the last minute

Could improve it as many times as needed

Did not need to wait for IT to install software and test it

Did not have to rely on IT to create working images

Did not need support to start/stop workstations

Benefits

Allowed to work on labs from office or home

Homogeneous, pre-tested environments

Students

Work on regular laptops

Could start/stop instances as desired

Benefits

Significant cost savings

Autonomy

Automated workflow

Strong feedback on the solution from the Customer's

teams using it.

Training Department

Challenge

FileSync from instructors to students

Student instances are in private subnet

All students try to download at nearly the same time

NAT becomes a choke point

Interim Solution:

Multiple NAT servers (m3.4xlarge to get 10G internet)

Now: S3 Endpoints in VPC

Thank You!Twitter: @Flux7Labs

Website: www.flux7.com

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