Running Microservices in Production with Docker, Codeship, and Cloud 66

Microservices are often called the LEGO-esque building blocks for creating container-based applications. They're a handy solution for breaking down monolithic apps, but what do I need to know if I want to deploy a microservice architecture? What sort of things do I need to consider before I containerize my application? And why are these things important?

Get your image right

Docker is a great way to mix and match technologies to give you the flexibility to write microservices in any kind of language or dependencies. The path to succeeding with microservices in production starts with getting your image right, as your Docker image is the foundation of your service.

In our webinar, I'll spend quite a bit of time talking about how to get your image right, why testing plays an important role in the deployment process, and the additional considerations that play a role in moving your containers into production.

Docker won't solve bad coding habits

We have a lot of data points from talking to and observing how our customers use Docker in production with Cloud 66. And we've managed to glean some pretty interesting observations, especially around how they tackle getting their code into containers.

Docker will not, and I repeat, will NOT solve your bad coding behaviors. While Docker allows us to define the environment our service process runs in, you still need to team it with good DevOps practices like testing, automation, security, and version control.

Build workflows that work

When your team's starting a greenfield microservice architecture project using Docker as the proverbial 'polyglot glue,' you're going to need to determine a workflow that works. Not only that, you'll need to figure out how to get your containers from dev to live.

One of the things you'll need to consider is what your local environment looks like. You'll need a plan around how to test your service, whether Docker will work with CI, and whether it's possible to automate the deployment of services in production using a Container-as-a-Service platform.

To tackle some of these workflow considerations, I'm putting together two microservice examples: one developed in Go and the other one in Ruby. This will give us a good grounding to go into the issues mentioned above, discuss the pitfalls, and give you tips for how you can deal with these effectively.

Watch a video recording of our webinar

Ready to kick off your microservices adventure? Watch this video recording of our webinar from June 29th where Daniel and Manuel talked about how to build, test and deploy Docker images when running microservices in production.

Want to test and deploy your microservices with Codeship Pro? Find out more here.

PS: If you liked this article you can also download it as a PDF eBook here: Breaking up your Monolith into Microservices or watch our re-run of our webinar: An Introduction to Building Your Apps with Microservices.