Panamax: Docker Management for Humans

I was able to play with the Panamax beta for the last couple of days, and it is an impressive system. The ease of use as well as the UI make it feel as if complex web applications can be installed as easily as local desktop apps on a Mac. I.e. due to the containerization and the use of setup scripts one can really easily install several interdependent dependencies in with one click. I installed a couple of open source systems just to see how it works, pretty awesome.

I'm currently using Docker + Fig for all my Docker development and deployment needs. That's already a very simple solution, but it still requires finding different docker images, finding the necessary parameters in the documentation, and finally combining the images + the various parameters in a single fig.yml file.

Panamax uses setup scripts which are very, very similar to those scripts that Orchard's Fig uses (which was just aquired by Docker). Only that it combines what I explained above in a single template that combines multiple images (Postgres + Nginx + PHP + Redis, for example) and lets you just run it with the click of a button.

And, as it is with Docker installations, no local tainting of you main system with various databases (like postgres / redis); everything is installed in a container and runs in a container. Your main system stays clean.

I like it.

A note on usability to the authors of the sites for open-source projects like this: my personal "user story" case study flows something like this:

1. I read the front page, skim the comment thread, and determine that this is roughly relevant to my interests.

2. I check that it's open source, because if it's not something I can install inside my firewall, my interest is terminated. (I expect this to be a quicker and easier check than almost any other validator, so I do it first.)

3. I search for the word "source" and "github" on the front page. No links? Hrm.

4. I search for the word "source" and "github" on the "get panamax" page. STILL no links?

5. ...? I guess next step is to copy the project name into google and look for the repo from there. But danger, project maintainers, danger: this is a step in the conversion funnel where I simply might get distracted and you might lose me before I make it farther.

In all honesty, I am still going to try things from a binary release before I try building it from source -- I'm no huge exception to the basic truths about onboarding flow needing as much ease as possible. But I'm still going to look to see if the source actually exists first.

In this case, the github can be found by searching for the project name, and also by following some of the documentation links, which jump to a wiki on github. But I want that flow. The "Panamax is an open-source product from CenturyLink" footer line would be a great place for a direct link to the source repo.

This all (Panamax + Fig) looks like a copycat of Ubuntu Juju. But in Ubuntu Juju you have a decent command line tool and decent UI all in one and you are not restricted to Docker only. Only needs more love and collaboration with Docker.

Looks awesome, got all excited, then even more excited about the contest and then I read the FAQ.

>I'm a developer outside the United States. Can I participate?

>No. Unfortunately, due to some legal restrictions, this contest is not available to developers outside the United States. Believe us, we'd love to have you join in, but we're not allowed to. We'd like to have an international challenge in the future.

I'll just have to be excited about the platform and contribute anyway with a discourse production ready template (Redis + Postgres + Discourse).

from "Century Link Labs" - didn't realize CL was that kind of company, very cool to see.

Will it be easily outgrown by users as heroku? It is better than heroku by giving the capability to compose your app from a vast docker image collection. But I guess that's good until you reach some scale/complexity.

Seems nice so far. But the UI seems so cluttered with all the CenturyLink branding / blog roll etc.

Do you realize that Panamax is a registered trademark of www.panamax.com?

Panamax, the hot new board game about the Panama Canal: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131287/panamax