Docker Swarm Overview

Docker Swarm overview

Docker Swarm is native clustering for Docker. It turns a pool of Docker hostsinto a single, virtual Docker host. Because Docker Swarm serves the standardDocker API, any tool that already communicates with a Docker daemon can useSwarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts. Supported tools include, butare not limited to, the following:

• Dokku
• Docker Compose
• Krane
• Jenkins

And of course, the Docker client itself is also supported.

Like other Docker projects, Docker Swarm follows the “swap, plug, and play”principle. As initial development settles, an API will develop to enablepluggable backends. This means you can swap out the scheduling backendDocker Swarm uses out-of-the-box with a backend you prefer. Swarm’s swappable design provides a smooth out-of-box experience for most use cases, and allows large-scale production deployments to swap for more powerful backends, like Mesos.

Understand swarm creation

The first step to creating a swarm on your network is to pull the Docker Swarm image. Then, using Docker, you configure the swarm manager and all the nodes to run Docker Swarm. This method requires that you:

• open a TCP port on each node for communication with the swarm manager
• install Docker on each node
• create and manage TLS certificates to secure your swarm

As a starting point, the manual method is best suited for experienced administrators or programmers contributing to Docker Swarm. The alternative is to use docker-machine to install a swarm.

Using Docker Machine, you can quickly install a Docker Swarm on cloud providers or inside your own data center. If you have VirtualBox installed on your local machine, you can quickly build and explore Docker Swarm in your local environment. This method automatically generates a certificate to secure your swarm.

Using Docker Machine is the best method for users getting started with Swarm for the first time. To try the recommended method of getting started, see Get Started with Docker Swarm.

If you are interested manually installing or interested in contributing, see Create a swarm for development.

Discovery services

To dynamically configure and manage the services in your containers, you use a discovery backend with Docker Swarm. For information on which backends are available, see the Discovery service documentation.

Advanced Scheduling

To learn more about advanced scheduling, see thestrategies and filtersdocuments.

Swarm API

The Docker Swarm API is compatible withthe Docker remoteAPI, and extends itwith some new endpoints.

Getting help

Docker Swarm is still in its infancy and under active development. If you needhelp, would like to contribute, or simply want to talk about the project withlike-minded individuals, we have a number of open channels for communication.

• To report bugs or file feature requests: please use the issue tracker on Github.

• To talk about the project with people in real time: please join the #docker-swarm channel on IRC.

• To contribute code or documentation changes: please submit a pull request on Github.

For more information and resources, please visit the Getting Help project page.