It's not very often a technology comes along, which is adopted so widely across an entire industry. Since its first public release in March 2013, Docker has not only gained the support of both end users, like you and I, but also industry leaders such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Docker is currently using the following sentence on their website to describe why you would want to use it:
Docker provides an integrated technology suite that enables development and IT operations teams to build, ship, and run distributed applications anywhere.
As simple as Docker's description sounds, it's been the ultimate goal for most development and IT operations teams for several years to have a tool, which can ensure that an application can consistently work across all stages of an application lifecycle, from development all the way through to production.
You will learn how to install Docker on your Operating System of choice. You will see that once Docker is installed, no matter which operating system you are using, you will get the same results when running containers.
We will then extend our Docker installation to public clouds and you will learn that no matter where you deploy your Docker hosts, the experience remains consistent and simple.
By the final chapter, you should have an idea on how Docker can be integrated into your day-to-day workflow and what your next steps with containers are going to be.
Chapter 1, Installing Docker Locally, works through installing the core Docker Engine as well as supporting tools on macOS, Windows 10, and Linux desktops so that you are ready for the forthcoming chapters.
Chapter 2, Launching Applications Using Docker, uses the Docker installation we installed in the previous chapter and launches containers. By the end of the chapter, we will launch a WordPress installation both manually and by using Docker Compose to define your multi-container application. We will also look at how you can publish your own images to Docker Hub.
Chapter 3, Docker in the Cloud, explains how to move away from your local installation of Docker and into public clouds. Here, we will look at launching Docker hosts in various public clouds and also deploy our applications onto them.
Chapter 4, Docker Swarm, continues to use public clouds; but rather than working with single isolated Docker hosts, we will deploy and configure a Docker Swarm cluster.
Chapter 5, Docker Plugins, speaks of the phrases used when describing Docker, which is Batteries included but removable. In this chapter, we will look at third-party plugins, which extend coreDocker functionality by adding persistent storage and multi-host networking.
Chapter 6, Troubleshooting and Monitoring, questions that, now that we have containers running locally, remotely, and within a cluster, what can go wrong? In this chapter, we will look at some of the problems you can come across. Also, we will learn how we can deploy tools to get metrics such as CPU, memory, and HDD utilization from your containers using both, first and third-party tools.
Chapter 7, Putting It All Together, emphasizes that you should now have a good understanding of what Docker is, how it works, and some possible use cases. In this chapter, we will explore how you can share container experience with colleagues as well what steps to take next.