devshawn/software-design-example

An example use case of Docker and software containers for the software design class at UMM.

Software Design Docker Example

An example proof-of-concept for utilizing Docker and software containers in the software design class at UMM.

This example utilizes the angular-fullstack Yeoman generator that was used last year. It has been updated quite a bit since last year's software design class, but is still very similar in the setup.

The Dockerfile included builds Docker containers based on the built application. Thus, the application must be built before running any of these:

$ gulp build

This builds the whole application and throws it in the dist directory, which is what the Dockerfile looks for. You would also need to rebuild the Docker Compose images with:

$ docker-compose build

This is because your dist files changed and the image needs them.

Spin up the production application with seeded database

For demos, it is beneficial to spin up the production version of the application with a seeded, clean database. We've created a simple Docker compose for this:

$ docker-compose up

This runs the default docker-compose.yml and spins up the production environment. Visit http://localhost:8080 to see the production application running. There should be six things listed under "features", as the database has been seeded. Note that the database and server are running in two different containers. Yay!

Attaching to an already-made database

Obviously, using a seed database all the time is not all that useful. Maybe we want to spin up a container with a database and connect our website to it.

First, create a Docker network to connect the two containers:

$ docker network create -d bridge softwaredesignexample_external

Next, spin up a new Mongo container and connect it to this network:

$ docker run --network=softwaredesignexample_external -itd --name=mongo_1 mongo

Next, run our external Docker Compose file which also attaches to this network and and can talk to our new mongo:

$ docker-compose -f docker-compose-external-db.yml up

Visit http://localhost:8080 to see the hosted website. There should be no "features" listed, because the newly created database is empty (rather than seeded as before).

Running a clean build of the current git repository

It is beneficial to not have to have the repository cloned and running gulp build before every docker-compose command. In the CLEAN_DEPLOY directory, we've included an example in which all you need is the Docker Compose file and a Dockerfile.

Move to the CLEAN_DEPLOY directory and run the following:

$ docker-compose up

This should clone the repository, build the application, and start the server and database.

You could then stop it and run it again and it will pull any new changes and run the server. Thus, this would always give you the latest version of your application (according to your hosted git repository).