&gt; wow so instead of running my configuration management stuff I know need to either: - be on aws - be on gcloud - any other cloud that has docker support out of the box<p>No. You need a networked computer with a quasi-recent kernel. There are no requirements to use a cloud provider or to use AWS&#x2F;GCP.<p>&gt; OR: I need docker + a configuration management to setup my environment, or I need to somehow manage my coreos configs. Oh and finally don&#x27;t forget to run a network over a network cause it&#x27;s dockerish so for most clouds this means we run a network on a network which runs a network.<p>This sounds like aimless rambling. You don&#x27;t <i>have</i> to use any of this. You <i>can</i>, of course, but I <i>can</i> do some nasty stuff without Docker as well. Like I mentioned with Container Engine, setting up a Kubernetes cluster is like two mouse clicks. You can get as simple as ECS, or you can roll your own from the ground up. You have the <i>option</i> to pick a point on a spectrum. With ECS, it&#x27;s Amazon&#x27;s way or the highway.<p>&gt; however i just don&#x27;t get it why people use their time for docker when there are other things to do in their programs.<p>Because it saves us <i>loads</i> of time developing, testing, and deploying our systems. There is more initial setup work, but after that we are deploying images seamlessly, have a great rolling upgrade and rollback story out of the box, and get a lot of other bonuses like service discovery, auto-scaling (vertically and horizontally), and much better (higher) resource usage levels. And we&#x27;re far from a mega-corp.<p>To me, it sounds like you may have skimmed some, perhaps even played a bit. But you ran into a snag, threw up your hands, and have summarily dismissed an entire ecosystem after your experience(s). I see enough un-informed or 100% incorrect things above to think you&#x27;re missing some details.