At a Glance

Learn how to use containers for your applications. Create and run your first Docker container. Then, learn how to run containers in production and solve problems of orchestration such as high availability, service discovery, and reconciliation.

About this course

Containers are a standard way to package an application and all its dependencies so that the application can be moved between environments and run without changes. Containers work by isolating the application inside the container so that everything outside the container can be standardized.

Docker has provided a set of tools to simplify the use of containers. This has led to massive adoption of containers by developers and operators. In this course, you will focus mostly on Docker container technologies.

In this course, you'll follow a series of hands-on labs that demonstrate how to use containers for your applications. You'll start with the basics: creating and running your first Docker containers. By the end of the course, you'll get a brief introduction to running containers in production with the and how to solve problems of advanced orchestration such as high availability, service discovery, and reconciliation.

Course syllabus

Set up Docker

Lab 1: Run your first container

What are containers?
1. Run a container
2. Run multiple containers
3. Remove the containers

Lab 2: Add CI/CD value with Docker images

Docker images
1. Create a Python app (without using Docker)
2. Create and build the Docker image
3. Run the Docker image
4. Push to a central registry
5. Deploy a change
6. Understand image layers
7. Remove containers

Lab 3. Orchestrate applications with Docker Swarm

Container orchestration overview
1. Create your first swarm
2. Deploy your first service
3. Scale your service
4. Apply rolling updates
5. Reconcile problems with containers
6. Determine how many nodes you need

Final exam

Requirements

You don't need to know anything about containers to take this course, and no extensive programming experience is required. However, you must know how to run command-line tools from your workstation.

If you don't have Docker already, you need install Docker Community Edition (CE) or use the use Play-with-Docker for all the labs in this course. Docker installations are available from store.docker.com for your Mac, Windows, or Linux machine.

This course shows you how to install Docker.

You must also have a Docker Hub account to complete Lab 3. If you don't already have one, go to Play-with-Docker and follow the prompts to create an account.

Course instructor

John Zaccone

Developer Advocate, IBM Digital Business Group

Course staff

Michelle Carey

IBM Courseware Developer

Cesar Canuta