Reproducible Computing Environments with Docker

Michael Milton (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)

Containers solve many common issues in developing and using research software. For example, they provide a very high level of reproducibility, they can be easily run across a large variety of computing environments, and they remove the need for an installation process. This workshop will cover the usage of the Docker command line to build and run research software using containers. The training material is available here.

Researchers and software engineers who work with or develop research software. By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Understand what Docker containers are, why they are useful and common container terminology
• Learn how to interact with Docker via the command line interface
• Understand how to find and use existing Docker images for common tasks
• Be able to build your own Docker container using Dockerfiles
• Understand how to manage Docker containers on your local system
• Appreciate issues around reproducibility in software and how containers can address some of these issues.

This Free Workshop is available to staff and students at The University of Melbourne and its affiliated institutes.

You must register for this event using an affiliated institutional email address or your registration may be cancelled.

This workshop is targetted at researchers and software engineers and moderate proficiency with linux command line is required to attand this workshop.

This is an in person hands-on workshop and attendees must bring their own computers (laptop chargers also recommended) with access to the internet/wifi and the following software preinstalled:

• Windows users: A terminal emulator such as PuTTY (free and open-source) will need to be downloaded.
• Mac users: No additional software needs to be installed for this workshop.

If you require any further information, or have any access requirements in order to participate in this workshop, please contact us as soon as possible to discuss your requirements:

We recommend that following our eventbrite page if you wish to be alerted when we release new workshops for registrations. If you require any further information, please contact Melbourne Bioinformatics at:

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Starting 1 August 2025, participants who miss two or more workshops without proper notice (less than 48 hours or attending under 50%) within 12 months will be placed on a 6-month waitlist for full workshops. To avoid being marked as a no-show, cancellations must be made at least 24 hours in advance, with exceptions allowed for emergencies.Please read the full policy here: https://mbite.org/guides/policy/

Waitlist: Please use your institutional email address for the waitlist so that we can easiliy confirm elidgibility when releasing tickets.

Also check out other Workshops in Melbourne.