Containers¶

Containers are isolated execution environments which enable reproducible analysis results. Containers in IDEAS refer to docker container images. Reproducibility is guaranteed in containers by creating an execution environment with a specific operating system, computer architecture, and with specific software dependencies and packages installed. All tools in IDEAS have a corresponding container image which defines the execution environment for the tool analysis code.

In order to create custom tools, a container must be selected for execution. Similar to tools, there are Inscopix containers, which are publicly available on IDEAS and used in Inscopix tools, but can also be used for custom tool analysis. Additionally, custom containers can also be created for custom tool analysis. This section introduces the containers library, and the types of containers offered in IDEAS.

Containers Library¶

The containers library is a place to explore and discover containers on IDEAS. In this page you can see your custom containers, and those created by others within your organization, as well as public, Inscopix tools. Containers can be filtered by keywords, tags, and author. There is also a filter to only show custom containers within your organization. Containers can also be sorted by criteria like date created, and can be pinned, similar to the project dashboard.

Inscopix Containers¶

Inscopix tools use Inscopix containers for execution environments. These containers are publicly available and can be used in your own custom tool analysis. Several Inscopix containers are provided on IDEAS that fit different analysis use cases. This is a good option for users who have limited experience with containers, with analysis use cases that have simple dependency requirements.

Custom Containers¶

For custom analysis which requires software dependencies not fulfilled by Inscopix containers, you can build and upload your own custom container to IDEAS. Select the custom filter in the top-right to view all the custom containers available within your organization.

To build a custom container and publish to IDEAS, please refer to this guide