docs/ee/cluster/index.md

description	keywords	title
Introduction and Overview of Docker Cluster	documentation, docs, docker, cluster, infrastructure, automation	Overview of Docker Cluster

{% include enterprise_label_shortform.md %}

Docker Cluster is a tool for lifecycle management of Docker clusters. With Cluster, you use a YAML file to configure your provider's resources. Then, with a single command, you provision and install all the resources from your configuration.

Using Docker Cluster is a three-step process:

1. Ensure you have the credentials necessary to provision a cluster.

2. Define the resources that make up your cluster in cluster.yml

3. Run docker cluster create to have Cluster provision resources and install Docker Enterprise on the resources.

A cluster.yml file resembles the following example:

{% raw %}

variable:
  region: us-east-2
  ucp_password:
    type: prompt

provider:
  aws:
    region: ${region}

cluster:
  engine:
    version: "ee-stable-18.09.5"
  ucp:
    version: "docker/ucp:3.1.6"
    username: "admin"
    password: ${ucp_password}

resource:
  aws_instance:
    managers:
       quantity: 1

{% endraw %}

For more information about Cluster files, refer to the Cluster file reference.

Docker Cluster has commands for managing the whole lifecycle of your cluster:

• Create and destroy clusters
• Scale up or scale down clusters
• Upgrade clusters
• View the status of clusters
• Backup and restore clusters

Export Docker Cluster artifacts

You can export both Terraform and Ansible scripts to deploy certain components standalone or with custom configurations. Use the following commands to export those scripts:

docker container run --detach --name dci --entrypoint sh docker/cluster:latest
docker container cp dci:/cluster/terraform terraform
docker container cp dci:/cluster/ansible ansible
docker container stop dci
docker container rm dci

Where to go next

• Get started with Docker Cluster on AWS
• Command line reference
• Cluster file reference