14: Deploying apps with Docker Stacks
Deploying and managing cloud-native microservices applications at scale is hard.
Fortunately, Docker Stacks are here to help.
We’ll split this chapter into the usual three parts:
- The TLDR
- The deep dive
- The commands
Deploying apps with Docker Stacks - The TLDR
Testing and deploying simple apps on your laptop is easy, but that’s for amateurs. Deploying and managing multi-service apps in real-world production environments… that’s for pros.
This is where Docker Stacks come into play. They let you define complex multi-service apps in a single declarative file. They also provide a simple way to deploy and manage entire application lifecycles — initial deployment > health checks > scaling > updates > rollbacks and more.
The process is simple. Define what you want in a Compose file and deploy and manage it with the docker stack
command. That’s it!
The Compose file includes the entire...