The Rocker Project provides widely used Docker images for R across different application scenarios. This article surveys downstream projects that build upon the Rocker Project images and presents the current state of R packages for managing Docker images and controlling containers. These use cases cover diverse topics such as package development, reproducible research, collaborative work, cloud-based data processing, and production deployment of services. The variety of applications demonstrates the power of the Rocker Project specifically and containerisation in general. Across the diverse ways to use containers, we identified common themes: reproducible environments, scalability and efficiency, and portability across clouds. We conclude that the current growth and diversification of use cases is likely to continue its positive impact, but see the need for consolidating the Rockerverse ecosystem of packages, developing common practices for applications, and exploring alternative containerisation software.
Supplementary materials are available in addition to this article. It can be downloaded at RJ-2020-007.zip
sys, stevedore, AzureContainers, googleCloudRunner, babelwhale, BiocManager, reticulate, Shiny, dockerfiler, dockr, liftr, checkpoint, renv, sf, rgdal, sanitizers, RSelenium, batchtools, googleComputeEngineR, future, plumber, drake, golem, analogsea, Rserve, svSocket, keras, DBI, dbplyr, dplyr, testthat, tinytest, ttdo, diffobj
ModelDeployment, WebTechnologies, HighPerformanceComputing, ReproducibleResearch, Databases, NumericalMathematics, Spatial, SpatioTemporal
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For attribution, please cite this work as
Nüst, et al., "The Rockerverse: Packages and Applications for Containerisation with R", The R Journal, 2020
BibTeX citation
@article{RJ-2020-007,
author = {Nüst, Daniel and Eddelbuettel, Dirk and Bennett, Dom and Cannoodt, Robrecht and Clark, Dav and Daróczi, Gergely and Edmondson, Mark and Fay, Colin and Hughes, Ellis and Kjeldgaard, Lars and Lopp, Sean and Marwick, Ben and Nolis, Heather and Nolis, Jacqueline and Ooi, Hong and Ram, Karthik and Ross, Noam and Shepherd, Lori and Sólymos, Péter and Swetnam, Tyson Lee and Turaga, Nitesh and Petegem, Charlotte Van and Williams, Jason and Willis, Craig and Xiao, Nan},
title = {The Rockerverse: Packages and Applications for Containerisation with R},
journal = {The R Journal},
year = {2020},
note = {https://doi.org/10.32614/RJ-2020-007},
doi = {10.32614/RJ-2020-007},
volume = {12},
issue = {1},
issn = {2073-4859},
pages = {437-461}
}