{"id":3458,"date":"2018-12-18T11:35:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T11:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverpassenger.com\/?p=3458"},"modified":"2026-08-07T07:25:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T06:25:59","slug":"improving-passenger-weve-recently-upgraded-development-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masabi.com\/it\/news\/improving-passenger-weve-recently-upgraded-development-environments\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Passenger: How we\u2019ve recently upgraded our development environments"},"content":{"rendered":"
On the surface, Passenger is an easy to use, customer-facing digital product. Look more deeply and you\u2019ll find that the system comprises a number of <\/span>different technologies and databases<\/span><\/a>. It is the combination of these, working as one beneath Passenger\u2019s app and web surface, that makes the end-product a joy to use.<\/span><\/p>\n

We recently invested in Docker to help us build, manage and secure each Passenger application in a more efficient way. Read on to better understand the behind the scenes work we\u2019re doing to make Passenger a stronger, more reliable solution for all that use it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why we moved to Docker<\/b><\/p>\n

Passenger\u2019s numerous development environments were previously built using Vagrant \u2013 a tool for building and managing virtual machines (VMs) environments in a single workflow \u2013 and Ansible \u2013 IT automation software that turns Vagrant\u2019s VMs into configurable resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cVMs\u201d are emulations of computer systems that provide the functionality of a physical computer. Each VM runs a Passenger system, providing separation between Passenger\u2019s different development environments. This is great, with the exception of being extremely resource intensive.<\/span><\/p>\n

To put this into context, Vagrant creates a new VM for each back-end service that comprises Passenger, which requires fixed CPU, disk and memory to be allocated. These \u201cfull-fat\u201d VMs with fixed resource allocation can be a time sink. If we ever wanted to rebuild the whole Passenger stack (the tools and applications that make up Passenger\u2019s back-end) the process could take up to an hour \u2013 not to mention the expensive hardware required to run the process. <\/span><\/p>\n

When developing, full requests \u2013 depending on the complexity \u2013 can also take 5-20 seconds to compute. That can feel an eternity in development time.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we <\/span>increased the amount of people<\/span><\/a> working on the Passenger stack, it quickly became apparent that this development environment was no longer the fit-for-purpose solution it once was. Technology and common practice have shifted towards <\/span>containerised <\/span><\/i>environments.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/b>Containing the problem<\/b><\/p>\n

Application containerisation is another method of \u201csandboxing\u201d applications. It can deploy and run Passenger\u2019s distributed applications within a stack without launching an entire VM for each app. As these \u201ccontainers\u201d use dynamic resource allocation, they do not require an up-front allocation of disk, CPU or memory. With no virtualisation required, containers are a more native approach \u2013 which means increased portability, scalability and security.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given these benefits, we\u2019ve implemented the best solution for implementing Passenger\u2019s newly containerised environments available today: <\/span>Docker<\/span><\/a>. Docker can bring a container into a fully functioning development environment with far fewer lines of configuration than the Vagrant\/Ansible solution \u2013 with the handy added benefit of keeping everything in a single file, which makes the whole application environment visible at a glance.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve also adopted Docker Compose, a tool that enables us to further define how Passenger\u2019s multiple application containers can come together to build an overall service.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does this mean for the product?<\/b><\/p>\n

Shifting our development environment from one solution to another was a big task, but it\u2019s come with huge benefits for the Passenger product. For instance\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n