Book Image

Docker for Serverless Applications

By : Chanwit Kaewkasi
Book Image

Docker for Serverless Applications

By: Chanwit Kaewkasi

Overview of this book

Serverless applications have gained a lot of popularity among developers and are currently the buzzwords in the tech market. Docker and serverless are two terms that go hand-in-hand. This book will start by explaining serverless and Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) concepts, and why they are important. Then, it will introduce the concepts of containerization and how Docker fits into the Serverless ideology. It will explore the architectures and components of three major Docker-based FaaS platforms, how to deploy and how to use their CLI. Then, this book will discuss how to set up and operate a production-grade Docker cluster. We will cover all concepts of FaaS frameworks with practical use cases, followed by deploying and orchestrating these serverless systems using Docker. Finally, we will also explore advanced topics and prototypes for FaaS architectures in the last chapter. By the end of this book, you will be in a position to build and deploy your own FaaS platform using Docker.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Summary


This chapter has introduced serverless and Docker, the definition of serverless, and the definition of FaaS. We learned the benefits of serverless, when to use it, and when to avoid it. A serverless FaaS is a FaaS platform run by a vendor on a public cloud, while a FaaS may be required to run on a private, a hybrid, or an on-premises environment. This is where we can use Docker. Docker will help us build FaaS applications, and prepare container infrastructure to run container-based functions.

We previewed the demo project that will be built step by step in later chapters. We then quickly did hello world with all three leading FaaS platforms for Docker to demonstrate how easy it is to run FaaS platforms on our own Docker cluster.

In the next chapter, we will review the concepts of the container, and the technologies behind it. We will also introduce Docker and its workflow, then we will learn the concept of the Docker Swarm cluster and how to prepare it. And finally, we will discuss how Docker fits into the world of serverless.