Docker Certified Associate (DCA) Exam Guide

Pass the DCA exam and enhance your DevOps skills by achieving faster deployments, reduced downtime, and continuous integration and continuous delivery

▶Book Description
Developers have changed their deployment artifacts from application binaries to container images, and they now need to build container-based applications as containers are part of their new development workflow. This Docker book is designed to help you learn about the management and administrative tasks of the Containers as a Service (CaaS) platform.

The book starts by getting you up and running with the key concepts of containers and microservices. You'll then cover different orchestration strategies and environments, along with exploring the Docker Enterprise platform. As you advance, the book will show you how to deploy secure, production-ready, container-based applications in Docker Enterprise environments. Later, you'll delve into each Docker Enterprise component and learn all about CaaS management. Throughout the book, you'll encounter important exam-specific topics, along with sample questions and detailed answers that will help you prepare effectively for the exam.

By the end of this Docker containers book, you'll have learned how to efficiently deploy and manage container-based environments in production, and you will have the skills and knowledge you need to pass the DCA exam.

▶What You Will Learn
-Understand the key concepts of containerization and its advantages
-Discover how to build secure images and run customized Docker containers
-Explore orchestration with Docker Swarm and Kubernetes
-Become well versed with networking and application publishing methods
-Understand the Docker container runtime environment and customizations
-Deploy services on Docker Enterprise with Universal Control Plane
-Get to grips with effectively managing images using Docker Trusted Registry

▶Key Features
-Strengthen your knowledge of container fundamentals and exploit Docker networking, storage, and image management
-Leverage Docker Swarm to deploy and scale applications in a cluster
-Build your Docker skills with the help of sample questions and mock tests

▶Who This Book Is For
If you are a system administrator, a developer, a DevOps engineer, or any professional interested in enhancing your career portfolio by gaining Docker certification, this book is for you. In order to understand container networking and the use of load balancers and proxies to provide a full-featured Containers-as-a-Service environment, Linux and Windows user knowledge with some networking skills will be necessary.

▶What this book covers
- Chapter 1, Modern Infrastructures and Applications with Docker, introduces the microservices architecture and containers as the perfect match for modern infrastructures. It also covers Docker Engine concepts.

- Chapter 2, Building Docker Images, presents the Docker image-building process, commandline tools, and best practices for creating good and secure images.

- Chapter 3, Running Docker Containers, shows how Docker helps us to run containers in our systems and explains how these processes are isolated from Docker Engine hosts.

- Chapter 4, Container Persistency and Networking, explains how to manage data out of the containers' life cycles, as well as how containers interact with internal and external resources.

- Chapter 5, Deploying Multi-Container Applications, explains how we can deploy applications in which components are based on containers. We will learn how to manage an application's components with Infrastructure as Code files.

- Chapter 6, Introduction to Docker Content Trust, shows how we can improve security in container-based environments, ensuring image ownership, immutability, and provenance.

- Chapter 7, Introduction to Orchestration, reviews orchestration concepts before diving into Docker Swarm and Kubernetes as orchestrators.

- Chapter 8, Orchestration Using Docker Swarm, covers Docker Swarm's features and implementation, explaining how to implement applications using this orchestrator.

- Chapter 9, Orchestration Using Kubernetes, introduces basic Kubernetes concepts and compares this orchestrator with Docker Swarm to help you implement the best solution for different applications or infrastructures.

- Chapter 10, Introduction to the Docker Enterprise Platform, introduces Docker Enterprise components and explains how Docker creates a production-ready Container as a Service platform.

- Chapter 11, Universal Control Plane, explains Docker Enterprise's control plane component. We will learn how to implement Universal Control Plane in production and how to manage the Docker Enterprise platform.

- Chapter 12, Publishing Applications in Docker Enterprise, reviews different methods for publishing applications and shows how to secure our Docker Swarm and Kubernetes platforms using Interlock and Ingress Controller.

- Chapter 13, Implementing an Enterprise-Grade Registry with DTR, explains how Docker Enterprise provides a production-ready registry to manage and store Docker images.

- Chapter 14, Summarizing Important Concepts, presents a summary of the most important concepts learned in the previous chapters. This chapter will help us to prepare for the Docker Certified Associate exam.

- Chapter 15, Mock Exam Questions and Final Notes, contains some mock Docker Certified Associate exam questions and explains the basics of the exam process.