9 Alternative orchestration tools
This chapter covers
- Running multiple containers with Docker and Docker Swarm
- Modifying Docker Compose files to run on Docker Swarm
- Running multiple containers with HashiCorp Nomad
- Using Nomad’s built-in user interface to manage container jobs
A key goal of this book is to help you adopt using containers as your go-to-deployment strategy with any given application. We have seen that Kubernetes is an effective way to run and manage containers in production. While I tend to think that Kubernetes is valuable for projects of all sizes, it can be useful to understand a few outstanding alternatives: Docker Swarm and HashiCorp Nomad.
Docker Swarm is essentially Docker Compose distributed across a cluster of virtual machines. We’ll see how the technical implementation works, but it is essentially a slightly modified Docker Compose file that connects to worker machines running Docker. Docker Swarm is a good option for those who are already familiar with Docker Compose and want to scale their applications across multiple virtual machines.