I’ve got yet another book from Packt Publishing (thanks, Sanjana!) – this one is called “Mastering Docker, Fourth Edition“, written by Russ McKendrick.

As this is already the fourth edition of a book, it can’t really be bad, right?!

Spoiler alert… it isn’t! 😊

I liked this book because it covers pretty much everything you’ll need to get started with containerization and Docker… and much more!

Really liked the format and the direction it takes – first part starts with introduction to Docker and why actually you may need it (and let’s face it – in today’s world, everything is about containers and you need Docker or something similar!), then goes through usual tasks of preparing the environment for Docker, building and distributing images, and finally – managing containers brought up from those images.

Next, it introduces Docker Compose for multi-container apps and Docker App for sharing Docker Compose bundles (something that’s been missing so far, and people at Docker recognized and built it recently). Following chapters cover bootstrapping of Docker hosts, which is also helpful and good to know.

Second part of the book covers mostly clustering (Docker Swarm), introduces Kubernetes and explores options for running containers in the public clouds, while the last part of this book covers best practices, security, monitoring and other important things you need to know when dealing with containers.

Overall – I really liked the practical examples and the whole “flow” of the book (from introduction to more complex parts of a subject). Also, I liked the broad picture presented in this book, because containers are really a broad subject nowadays… there is so much to learn and so many options.

For people that are dealing with containers for years now and have deep understanding topics surrounding them, this book will maybe be “too shallow”, because it’s written broadly and you can’t put everything there is about containers, Kubernetes, Docker, clouds, … in one book (I mean – you could, but who would then read it? 😃). So, it’s on you to decide where you stand and what do you need.

Lastly, I think author did a very well job covering everything you need to start with Docker and containers, content is up-to-date, and would recommend you to go through this book if you have a chance. It would also be a good start for those taking a Docker Certified Associate exam, I believe.