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Oct 7, 2015
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Cleanup principles #209

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45 changes: 20 additions & 25 deletions principles.md
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Define a unit of software delivery called a Standard Container.
The goal of a Standard Container is to encapsulate a software component and all its dependencies in a format that is self-describing and portable, so that any compliant runtime can run it without extra dependencies, regardless of the underlying machine and the contents of the container.

The specification for Standard Containers is straightforward.
It mostly defines 1) a file format, 2) a set of standard operations, and 3) an execution environment.
The specification for Standard Containers defines:

A great analogy for this is the shipping container.
Just like how Standard Containers are a fundamental unit of software delivery, shipping containers are a fundamental unit of physical delivery.
1. configuration file formats
2. a set of standard operations
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@vbatts vbatts Oct 2, 2015

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wondered if you were going to touch this, as it bothered you some weeks ago

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@duglin duglin Oct 2, 2015

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well, this round is more about clean-up - with just a touch of clarity. The entire 'standard operations' thing is still a bit of a mystery to me since I don't know how you define an operation w/o defining something like an interface or API :-)

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@vbatts vbatts Oct 2, 2015

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fair

3. an execution environment.

A great analogy for this is the physical shipping container used by the transportation industry.
Shipping containers are a fundamental unit of delivery, they can be lifted, stacked, locked, loaded, unloaded and labelled.
Irrespective of their contents, by standardizing the container itself it allowed for a consistent, more streamlined and efficient set of processes to be defined.
For software Standard Containers offer similar functionality by being the fundamental, standardized, unit of delivery for a software package.
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@vbatts vbatts Oct 2, 2015

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I just read this thinking that we had labels/annotations but then realized that we haven't added such yet :-
I see #108 and think we should move forward on such


## 1. Standard operations

Just like shipping containers, Standard Containers define a set of STANDARD OPERATIONS.
Shipping containers can be lifted, stacked, locked, loaded, unloaded and labelled.
Similarly, Standard Containers can be created, started, and stopped using standard container tools (what this spec is about); copied and snapshotted using standard filesystem tools; and downloaded and uploaded using standard network tools.
Standard Containers define a set of STANDARD OPERATIONS.
They can be created, started, and stopped using standard container tools; copied and snapshotted using standard filesystem tools; and downloaded and uploaded using standard network tools.
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@vishh vishh Oct 7, 2015

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Can we add more clarity here? What is required for hosting these containers to come up with standard network tools? Will OCI define APIs for these purpose?

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@wking wking Oct 7, 2015

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On Wed, Oct 07, 2015 at 10:12:46AM -0700, Vish Kannan wrote:

+They can be created, started, and stopped using standard
container tools; copied and snapshotted using standard filesystem
tools; and downloaded and uploaded using standard network tools.

Can we add more clarity here? What is required for hosting these
containers to come up with standard network tools? Will OCI define
APIs for these purpose?

Can we punt on this for now? I think transfering these files with
tar/Nginx/curl, or tar/netcat, or IPFS, etc., etc., should be fine.
But this has been a hot-button issue in the past, and I'd rather avoid
having discussion about that stall this rewording PR.

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@duglin duglin Oct 7, 2015

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The entire "standard operations" concept is one I'm struggling with and plan on opening a PR on once I get formulate a coherent proposal in my head. So for now I'd prefer if this PR just focused on cleaning up the docs - leaving the hard (potentially controversial) changes for more focused PRs.

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@vbatts vbatts Oct 7, 2015

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yeah. for now, this is just carry over from the prior wording, but this is the fuzziest of terms. Let's clear it up in another PR.


## 2. Content-agnostic

Just like shipping containers, Standard Containers are CONTENT-AGNOSTIC: all standard operations have the same effect regardless of the contents.
A shipping container will be stacked in exactly the same way whether it contains Vietnamese powder coffee or spare Maserati parts.
Similarly, Standard Containers are started or uploaded in the same way whether they contain a postgres database, a php application with its dependencies and application server, or Java build artifacts.
Standard Containers are CONTENT-AGNOSTIC: all standard operations have the same effect regardless of the contents.
They are started in the same way whether they contain a postgres database, a php application with its dependencies and application server, or Java build artifacts.

## 3. Infrastructure-agnostic

Both types of containers are INFRASTRUCTURE-AGNOSTIC: they can be transported to thousands of facilities around the world, and manipulated by a wide variety of equipment.
A shipping container can be packed in a factory in Ukraine, transported by truck to the nearest routing center, stacked onto a train, loaded into a German boat by an Australian-built crane, stored in a warehouse at a US facility, etc.
Similarly, a standard container can be bundled on my laptop, uploaded to S3, downloaded, run and snapshotted by a build server at Equinix in Virginia, uploaded to 10 staging servers in a home-made Openstack cluster, then sent to 30 production instances across 3 EC2 regions.
Standard Containers are INFRASTRUCTURE-AGNOSTIC: they can be run in any OCI supported infrastructure.
For example, a standard container can be bundled on a laptop, uploaded to cloud storage, downloaded, run and snapshotted by a build server at a fiber hotel in Virginia, uploaded to 10 staging servers in a home-made private cloud cluster, then sent to 30 production instances across 3 public cloud regions.

## 4. Designed for automation

Because they offer the same standard operations regardless of content and infrastructure, Standard Containers, just like their physical counterparts, are extremely well-suited for automation.
Standard Containers are DESIGNED FOR AUTOMATION: because they offer the same standard operations regardless of content and infrastructure, Standard Containers, are extremely well-suited for automation.
In fact, you could say automation is their secret weapon.

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@vbatts vbatts Oct 7, 2015

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one sentence per line, please

Many things that once required time-consuming and error-prone human effort can now be programmed.
Before shipping containers, a bag of powder coffee was hauled, dragged, dropped, rolled and stacked by 10 different people in 10 different locations by the time it reached its destination.
1 out of 50 disappeared.
1 out of 20 was damaged.
The process was slow, inefficient and cost a fortune - and was entirely different depending on the facility and the type of goods.

Similarly, before Standard Containers, by the time a software component ran in production, it had been individually built, configured, bundled, documented, patched, vendored, templated, tweaked and instrumented by 10 different people on 10 different computers.
Before Standard Containers, by the time a software component ran in production, it had been individually built, configured, bundled, documented, patched, vendored, templated, tweaked and instrumented by 10 different people on 10 different computers.
Builds failed, libraries conflicted, mirrors crashed, post-it notes were lost, logs were misplaced, cluster updates were half-broken.
The process was slow, inefficient and cost a fortune - and was entirely different depending on the language and infrastructure provider.

## 5. Industrial-grade delivery

There are 17 million shipping containers in existence, packed with every physical good imaginable.
Every single one of them can be loaded onto the same boats, by the same cranes, in the same facilities, and sent anywhere in the World with incredible efficiency.
It is embarrassing to think that a 30 ton shipment of coffee can safely travel half-way across the World in *less time* than it takes a software team to deliver its code from one datacenter to another sitting 10 miles away.

With Standard Containers we can put an end to that embarrassment, by making INDUSTRIAL-GRADE DELIVERY of software a reality.
Standard Containers make INDUSTRIAL-GRADE DELIVERY of software a reality.
Leveraging all of the properties listed above, Standard Containers are enabling large and small enterprises to streamline and automate their software delivery pipelines.
Whether it is in-house devOps flows, or external customer-based software delivery mechanisms, Standard Containers are changing the way the community thinks about software packaging and delivery.