Docker (containerization)

The SC//Reliant™ platform leverages dockerd, containerd, and runc to run containers in a layered architecture where each component has specific responsibilities.

• dockerd (the Docker daemon), user-facing and management layer. The high-level daemon that operators and the platform interact with via the Docker API and command-line interface.
• containerd, core container runtime supervisor. A lower-level daemon that manages the complete lifecycle of containers on a host, including image transfer, execution, and storage.
• runc, low-level container runtime. A lightweight, command-line tool that creates and runs containers according to the Open Container Initiative (OCI) specification.

This layered approach provides modularity, stability, and adherence to open standards, ensuring a robust container execution environment.

Role in the platform

Containers are the primary unit of application delivery on the SC//Reliant platform. The platform uses Puppet plus Docker directly for container orchestration; there is no proprietary scheduler in between. Container definitions and image tags are stored in the SC//Reliant Platform Manager as structured property data and pushed to each node via Puppet, which then reconciles the running container state on every agent run.

Container images themselves are pulled from operator-defined registries and cached on the node so the prior image tag is available locally for fast rollback. The platform is registry-agnostic: any OCI-compliant container registry is supported, for example, DockerHub, Amazon Elastic Container Registry, Azure Container Registry, Google Container Registry, Artifactory, Harbor, or a self-hosted private registry. The choice of registry, cloud, or hosting model is left entirely to the operator.

What runs in containers

• POS applications and payment workloads.
• Networking and security services (firewall helpers, IDS, log forwarders).
• IoT and OT protocol adapters.
• AI/ML inference and computer-vision workloads.
• Digital signage and customer-experience services.
• Backup, monitoring, and integration agents.

Related documentation

• Containers: operational guide to deploying and managing containers.
• Image management: image lifecycle and registry configuration.
• Image signing: signature validation requirements.
• Container data management with volumes: persistent data and volume handling.
• Container data management overview: an overview of how container data is managed in SC//Reliant Platform Manager.
• The CLI reference covers RVC Docker subcommands.