Help me figure out if rancher is the right tool for me

Not sure if rancher is for me so here is my usage scenario:
my company is starting to use docker so I created 3 docker hosts: one will be the main one for managing running rancher, the other one is inside my DMZ and has few containers running i.e. a nginx-proxy container which then forwards to my internal docker host. Ideally I’d have a forth docker host as a playground. So I am looking for a tool which helps me develop containers on the playground then move them to either the internal docker host or onto the DMZ docker host.

Looking at the current rancher situation I don’t see how I can move any container around or am I missing something here?

Hello! I’m not very experienced with Rancher (I’m still trying to get an obscure but essential feature to work), but I have used Docker a lot.

When using Docker, you generally work with two different—but closely related—types of data:

  1. Docker images. These are essentially “images” of all the files needed by a container. You build an image from a Dockerfile using docker build. You can build images either locally on your workstation or on your continuous integration server if you have one. Once you build an image, you normally publish it using a “registry”, such as Docker Hub or Amazon’s ECR. You can have public or private registries.
  2. Docker containers. You create containers from images using “docker run”. A container is sort of like a running VM: It has disk storage, running processes, and so on.

So in your setup, you’d normally build your images somewhere and publish them to your repository. Then you’d use Rancher to deploy those images to your playground as running containers. You’d test the containers in the playground. Once you were convinced that everything worked, you’d use Rancher to deploy those same images your internal or DMZ servers. And yes, Rancher can do all this.

Anyway, I hope this helps a little bit!

Thanks, that advice nudged me into the right direction. Busy doing more research but this was very well explained! Thanks again!