For a while now, I’ve been wanting to know and learn more about containers. Nothing like a new job that specializes in containers to jump start that process.

If anyone is wondering where a good starting point is for learning what containers are, might I recommend the Docker tutorial container getting-started.

$ docker run -d -p 80:80 docker/getting-started

This is a simple image that includes a tutorial website that takes you through the basics of using Docker. Goes through how to pull an image, build an image with code, update an image, and deploy all with using the CLI. Doesn’t really get into orchestration but does bring it up near the end. However, an added benefit in my book, it’s a fully functioning image that includes a multi-page website. Perfect for running quick container tests.

It may not be what you intend to do with a container, but it is very nice baseline. So much so, I’ve started using it to play around with the container services in AWS. Started off by deploying a copy of it to an ECR repo. From there, I’ve used it to test out different scenarios in ECS and EKS. Testing out EC2 vs Fargate instance types; testing out multiple deployments behind a load balancer; and testing a multi-container task. Perfect for helping me know I’m deploying my containers correctly and they work. I know I can build my own container and test it locally, but I haven’t gotten to that point yet.

I do have a couple of my own ideas to try testing out as well. Just need to build the images. Current plans include my Discord bot, a V Rising game server, and some of my own website builds. The bot will be interesting as I haven’t yet tested .NET Core in Linux and want to give that a try. The V Rising server is Windows only, so that will be nice experience with a Windows container. The websites will likely be Blazor/.NET Core, so Windows is a given; but Linux is an unknown. Similar to my Discord bot currently. Either way, I’ll be learning along the way.