Running a database in Docker is useful if you think more broadly of containers and orchestration, and think less about nodes and more about the cluster as a poo

Running a database in Docker is useful if you think more broadly of containers and orchestration, and think less about nodes and more about the cluster as a pool of resources. All our "system software" — Postgres, Redis, Memcached, RabbitMQ, Elasticsearch, etc. — run as containers on Kubernetes. Doing so allows us to start new versions without considering the host OS. For example, we can upgrade Postgres to a new release the moment it's out, without having to wait for Debian or Ubuntu or whatever. It also allows us to run different versions (e.g. a new one for testing in our "staging" environment) concurrently without any concerns about which node is running what. In fact, almost nothing needs to be configured with information about "nodes"; everything is routed to the right place, and the client only needs a name to connect to. Sometimes we start temporary instances of software, e.g. to experiment with. Bring the container up, do the testing, bring container down; nothing ever got installed on the host OS.