Server Tuning. Services natively or in containers/virtuals?

Question

System administration

I am now deploying a server for work needs. owncloud, file cleaner, gitlab, and so on.
By default, I install and configure all these services natively. Accordingly, when moving to another hardware, I will install all this again, at best, copying the configs, making backups is also a little confusing.
How do modern people do it? Is it possible to wrap these services in docker containers? Or shove them into virtual machines? Or do they not?
Thanks in advance.
PS: I will be especially grateful for articles/books introducing the modern practice of organizing such cases.

Answer 1

At a minimum, you need to use tools for configuration management, for example, https://www.ansible.com/
And yes, wrap it in docker. In principle, the documentation on the network is full. The official one has a bunch of examples on wrapping services: https://docs.docker.com/engine/examples/
I recently recorded a webinar about docker, you might be interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfXuTTV6TVo

Answer 2

Usually, an intelligent administrator takes into account a lot of factors, such as the degree of utilization of hardware capacities, the required performance and availability of services, the amount of maintenance labor, etc. But modern people, for the most part, are not smart admins, but mods who choose docker just because it is mainstream.

Answer 3

How do modern people do it? Is it possible to wrap these services in docker containers? Or shove them into virtual machines? Or do they not?

Some people do it the way they are used to. But more often everything is already in containers lxc, docker or just a kvm machine.
It's easier to transfer to a new machine, it's easier to deploy the system through ansible, chef, etc.
It is easier to monitor and allocate resources, and not when the car got a stake because of a certain service.
I even scatter everything in containers on my car.
Just before you put everything into Docker, I highly recommend that you get acquainted with the concept of its work and how it stores data and how image works for it. Perhaps this will not suit you and you will use lxc.

Answer 4

Take a look at Proxmox.
Very convenient administration through a web muzzle.
Separate virtual machines for each service.

Answer 5

Personal example: 2 computers, 10 virtual machines on them. The third computer is in reserve in case one of them fails. A couple of HDDs to restore raids. All. The advantages of the approach are obvious - there is always a system backup for almost any period of time, in the event of an emergency, you can roll everything back in a minimum period of time without dancing with a tambourine.