Guidelines and best practices for using Docker in support of HLA federations

Containerization is the process of creating, packaging, distributing, deploying, and executing applications as self-contained units in a lightweight and standardized process execution environment known as a container. A container provides a standard format and interface to its container runtime environment and is portable across runtime environments. Because containers are, in principle, lightweight, they are very suitable to serve as the vehicle for the provision of packaged (micro)services. Docker is an open source product supporting the creation, management and deployment of containers. Docker has, since its public release in 2013, developed to the point where now it is a compelling solution for any distributed application-simulations built on the High Level Architecture included. This paper provides an overview of Docker and how it can be used in support of deploying and running HLA federations. Much of Docker can be used as is to provide real benefit in support of the management of HLA federations. However, there are use cases that require special consideration for how Docker is used, how federates are built, and how federations are composed. Antycip Simulation; Aptima; et al.; MAK Technologies; NATO Modelling and Simulation Group (NMSG); Pitch Technologies