Presentation & Demo of Packer/Vagrant

Abstract

In order to create an isolated environment with specific dependencies, one can use either virtualization or containerization. Containers have fast boot times and a negligible overhead, but they still depend on their host’s hardware and need to interact directly with its kernel. On the other hand, virtual machines have worse performances, but they offer more customization and reproducibility by simulating even the hardware. In the recent years, Docker set a standard for containers by offering a complete and unified ecosystem to automate their definition, building, sharing and management. Here, we will have a look at the association of Packer and Vagrant, two complementary softwares that aim to create such an ecosystem for virtual machines, which can be used for packaging softwares, artifacts or demonstrators among others.