Simplifying Ruby on Rails Applications: How Docker Containers Reduce the Need for Multiple Worker Processes
If you develop an application with Ruby on Rails, it's likely that you can configure the number of worker processes. However, Docker containers reduce the need for multiple worker processes, and using one worker process is mostly sufficient. Here is why.
Horizontal scaling: Docker containers enable horizontal scaling, where you can run multiple instances of the same application in parallel. Each container runs an isolated environment with its own process and resources, effectively acting as a separate worker process. By adding more containers, you can distribute the workload among them without needing multiple worker processes within the application itself.
Load balancing: When you use Docker containers for horizontal scaling, you can also implement load balancing. This means that incoming requests are distributed evenly among the container instances. Load balancing helps to efficiently utilize resources and avoid overloading a single worker process, reducing the need for multiple worker processes inside the application.
Simplified deployment and management: Docker containers allow for easy deployment and management of applications. By encapsulating the application and its dependencies within a container, developers can focus on writing single-threaded code without worrying about the complexity of managing multiple worker processes. The orchestration of containers can be handled by container management tools like Kubernetes, which can automatically scale the number of containers based on demand.
Isolation and fault tolerance: Docker containers provide process isolation, which means that if one container fails, it doesn't affect the others. This increases fault tolerance and reduces the need for managing multiple worker processes within the application to handle failures.
Using Docker containers can help simplify application development and deployment by minimizing the need for multiple worker processes within the application. Instead, applications can be designed as single-process applications, and horizontal scaling can be achieved through container management tools.