<i>&quot;Say we want to deploy a web service as four containers running off the “httpd” image....This is simple to ask for but deceptively hard to actually make happen.&quot;</i><p>...and yet, would take almost no work to set up using a non-dockerized workflow. I don&#x27;t understand why so many people are putting themselves through this. It&#x27;s becoming common to hear people from dinky little startups going down dark rabbit holes trying to build their infrastructure like Google -- but it&#x27;s a total distraction!<p>If you&#x27;re running a service with a small number of machines, don&#x27;t do any of this. Architect a sensible multi-AZ deployment (i.e. a cluster of 2-3 machines, an ELB, a VPN, and a firewall&#x2F;bastion server), spin up instances by hand, and upgrade things as needed. Create AMIs for your machine classes, and get yourself used to working with a sensible upgrade schedule. Doing this for a small number of machines (e.g. N &lt;= 25) won&#x27;t take an appreciable amount of your time.<p>Once you start to have more machines than that, you&#x27;ll probably also have the resources to get someone who knows what they&#x27;re doing to set up more &quot;magical&quot; automated management schemes. Don&#x27;t bury yourself in unnecessary complexity just because it&#x27;s the hot new tech of the moment.