Explaining successful docker images using pattern mining analysis

Docker is on the rise in today’s enterprise IT. It permits shipping applications inside portable containers, which run from so-called Docker images. Docker images are distributed in public registries, which also monitor their popularity. The popularity of an image directly impacts on its usage, and hence on the potential revenues of its developers. In this paper, we present a frequent pattern mining-based approach for understanding how to improve an image to increase its popularity. The results in this work can provide valuable insights to Docker image providers, helping them to design more competitive software products.