VMware appcatalyst

VMware appcatalyst - what is it and what could it mean to DevOps

VMware appcatalyst is a free, open source, non-UI VM host for Mac OS X.  It could be thought of a thin version of Fusion (no windows hosting, etc.)  a couple neat features of it include;

• faster boot time
• comes with a RESTful API (appcatalyst-daemon)
• comes with Project Photon out of the box

a quick idea of how to start it

1. appcatalyst vm create [give the VM a name]
2. appcatalyst vmpower on [your VM name]
3. (wait while it starts up... may be 10 seconds?)
4. appcatalyst guest getip [your VM name]
5. ssh -i /opt/vmware/appcatalyst/etc/appcatalyst_insecure_ssh_key photon@[ip_address]

once you're in, docker is already running

• docker ps

and you can start playing with docker however you like.  (if you want to enable remote docker access, check out this)

From a DevOps point of view, appcatalyst - on a Mac, at least - opens up the possibility of the following;

• docker image builder that is not boot2docker or Kinematic
• ability to spool up one or more VMs via REST

consider a workflow such as;

1. build a Spring Boot app
2. maven build calls appcatalyst-daemon and starts up your docker VM
3. build a docker VM image and start it within the VM
4. integration test
5. shutdown

all based on docker containers, on a VM host that's REST managable