The Container Management feature allows you to run your applications in containers, within your gateways.

In the VMware Pulse IoT Center console, the containers are displayed as virtual Things. You can perform operations such as create, start, stop, and remove, on these containers. You can even monitor their status and view their metrics. Using a container platform tool such as Docker, write an application for specific tasks that you want to perform on your gateways, and archive it as a container image. You can then use Container Management to run the container image without interrupting other applications that are already running on the gateway. Container Management can also pull images from the remote Docker Trusted Registry.

Using Container Management, you can perform the following operations:
  • pull - Pull an image and make it available on the gateway.
  • create - Create a container and specify the parameters.
  • start - Start a container by name.
  • run - Pull, create, and start a container.
  • stop - Stop a container by name.
  • rm - Remove a container by name.
  • rmi - Remove a container image by name.
Note: Before you proceed, ensure that Docker service is enabled and running on your gateway.
To work with Container Management, use the following workflow:
  1. Create a container Thing template with Client Commands. For more information, see Create a Container Thing Template.
  2. Create a Docker gateway template with Client Commands. For more information, see Create a Docker Gateway Template.
  3. Register and enroll your Docker gateway to the VMware Pulse IoT Center server. For more information, see Onboard Your Docker Gateway.
  4. Install Container Management. For more information, see Install Container Management.
  5. Perform Container Management operations. For more information, see Container Management Sample Use Case.