Balea creates a proxy of javax.sql.DataSource, providing dynamic routing to multiple container based databases following a On Demand Data Source Access architecture.
Docker is used as manager to create, start or stop database containers on demand and link correspondent data volumes. Thanks to this approach is possible to distribute data across multiple databases keeping active only the necessary ones in each moment maximizing the use of system resources.
The distribution and management of data is hidden under the hood, any process that uses this data source interface (i.e. Hibernate) will perceive it as a single source of data.
It makes possible for standard SQL database like Postgresql or MySQL to be maintained, backed up or versioned with simple file system operations as the data volumes are attached dynamically to the managed Docker containers.
Docker integration allows also to manage database containers in remote hosts.