Microservices and Containers

I wrote this book with two audiences in mind. The first group includes students, designers, and architects with experience in software and systems engineering. Although you might be familiar with microservices and/or containers, this is probably your first book dedicated entirely to them. It should provide you not only with a comprehensive overview on the subjects but also with enough information and analysis to help you decide when—and when not—to utilize these technologies. Those of you who already have hands-on experience with microservices and/or containers may want to skim through Parts I and II and dive straight into Part III, which presents a full-fledged service desk example, written by following the standard service-oriented architectures (SOA) methodologies. This case study discusses how one such application’s architecture can be converted to a microservices-based architecture as well as how Docker containers fit into the picture. I think this deep dive under the hood will be a real treat and ultimately pique your interest enough to delve into the world of microservices and containers yourself. My other target readers are non-programmers coming at the topic from a business perspective—executives or project managers interested in learning the basics. Perhaps you read an intriguing blog post about microservices. Could that be the solution your team has been searching for but you couldn’t seem to find a good follow-up book? Maybe you’ve overheard the engineers discussing Docker containers and want to learn enough to fit in and talk the talk. Whatever your reasons, this book—essentially a primer chock full of easy-to-understand examples and minimal jargon—should be ideal for any manager considering new ways to update or develop new applications more effectively. This book is for anyone trying to accomplish any or all of the following: • • Make his or her organization more effective in building industrial-strength software. • • Transition into microservices and Docker containers while understanding how they differ from SOA. • • Learn microservices and Docker as part of his or her school curriculum to gain new, highly marketable skills. In short, this book is for anyone who wants to learn more about microservices and Docker containers. I hope you are one of them! Let’s get started.