Lesson 4.3:
Cloud Native Node.js

Containerization with Docker

Packaging your Node.js application with its dependencies ensures that it runs exactly the same in development as it does in production. 2026 best practices emphasize multi-stage builds for minimal image size.

# Multi-stage Dockerfile for Node.js
FROM node:26-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .

FROM node:26-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=builder /app ./
CMD ["node", "index.js"]

Orchestration with Kubernetes

K8s manages the lifecycle of your containers, handling self-healing, rolling updates, and horizontal autoscaling (HPA) automatically.

Serverless (FaaS) vs. K8s

For ephemeral tasks, AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions offer zero-management scale. For persistent, stateful services, Kubernetes provides more control and long-term cost benefits.

Check Your Knowledge

Which technology is best for ensuring consistent environments across dev and production?

• Docker
• Git