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Scaling a Docker Swarm Service

For the last six months, the Acme Anvil Corporation has been migrating some of their bare metal infrastructure to Docker containers. A schism has developed between the members of your team on whether to use Docker Swarm or Kubernetes. To settle the dispute, your manager has decided to create a series of challenges. You have been tasked with setting up a Docker swarm with 5 nodes: 2 masters and 3 workers. The masters are to be configured to act only as masters. Next, you will create an httpd service with 3 replicas. Finally, you will scale the service up to 5 replicas and then down to 2.

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Path Info

Level
Clock icon Intermediate
Duration
Clock icon 1h 30m
Last updated
Clock icon Aug 29, 2025

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Create a Swarm

    Create a swarm with 2 masters and 3 worker nodes.

    Initilize the swarm.

    docker swarm init

    Use the join command to add the 3 worker nodes.

    docker swarm join --token TOKEN IP_ADDRESS:2377

    Generate the master token.

    docker swarm join-token manager

  2. Challenge

    Drain the Masters

    Set the availability to drain for Master1.

    docker node update --availability drain MASTER1

    Set the availability to drain for Master2.

    docker node update --availability drain MASTER2

  3. Challenge

    Create a Service

    Create a service with 3 replicas.

    docker service create --name httpd -p 80:80 --replicas 3 httpd

  4. Challenge

    Scale the Service up to 5 Replicas

    Scale the httpd service up to 5 replicas.

    docker service scale httpd=5

  5. Challenge

    Scale the Service Down to 2 Replicas

    Scale the httpd service down to 2 replicas.

    docker service scale httpd=2
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Pluralsight Skills

Pluralsight Skills gives leaders confidence they have the skills needed to execute technology strategy. Technology teams can benchmark expertise across roles, speed up release cycles and build reliable, secure products. By leveraging our expert content, skill assessments and one-of-a-kind analytics, keep up with the pace of change, put the right people on the right projects and boost productivity. It's the most effective path to developing tech skills at scale.

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Follow along with the author’s guided walkthrough and build something new in your provided environment!

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