Docker Swarm Is Still Working, And That's Boring

I've always considered myself a self-hosting server nut. You would see me deploying servers, VMs, and containers on the daily. Busting out the latest new container, troubleshooting issues, swimming in the endless lines of text within the Linux terminal. There was chaos in the homelab. But lately, I found myself in an odd situation. A quiet lingered over my homelab that once was an intense storm. I found myself... Relaxed. Vibing even. Enjoying the finer things in life. I read a book for the first time in years- nothing to write home about, but something indicative of change in my daily routine. How is it that I went from laboring over my homelab, to barely interacting with it?

Sure, I always knew Docker was easy. I'd deploy a new container on a whim without a second thought, no effort required. Maintaining those containers was pretty easy, although they did need the occasional updates. I deployed so many containers to my main server that there was always the possibility of docker exploding in my face. It happened before. The system itself crashing, burning, exploding... Catastrophe happens. I had to recover from disaster a few times, and my uptime? Suffered as a result. To be below 99% was to be an unacceptable inconvenience to both my friends and family, not to mention a lethal blow to my pride.

Then came Docker Swarm, with my 4 machine cluster. A beacon of hope in a dark place, the Swarm offered unparalleled convenience to all. Services were always up, and downtime was a thing of the past. Not to mention, the containers? Auto updated weekly. Something went wrong with the update? Only then would I lift a finger, being notified immediately if anything went wrong. I found myself walking by the servers on occasion, glancing at the cluster. "I wonder how it's doing..." I'd ask myself, knowing full well that my uptime monitors have given me no cause for alarm. They were definitely good. Too good. Suspiciously good. There's no way they've been chugging away without reboot for over 77 days. How is it possible?

I knew better, so I checked. Each and every server was thoroughly analyzed for any sign of malfunction, yet there was nothing. They were running without issue. How is this possible? I check my uptime statistics. Higher than ever. What is going on? How is it that something so beautiful exists? Even my wife, who's beauty shines like the radiant sun, casts rays less radiant than that of my uptime numbers. I refused to acknowledge something so perfect. After all, only the code written by our lord and savior Linus Torvalds could be so graceful.

Yet there it was plain before me, with the relaxed numbness of tranquility. Stable. Effortless. Boring. Self-hosting was supposed to be hard, they said. Impossible to maintain. A burden. Yet here I was, without anything to do but enjoy the fruits of my labor. The quiet comfort of using cloud services, without the subscriptions. Without the ads. Just me, my self-hosted services, and nothing to do other than enjoy them when I need them. Self-hosting being this convenient should be cause for alarm for the big tech companies out there trying to earn my subscription, since I won't ever be coming back. The only thing now to do is to spread the word on how great self-hosting can be.