run docker compose up (old way was docker-compose up)
Advantages
Using a project name, DC can isolate environments from each other
Preserve volume data when containers are created
Recreate only containers that have changed
Can use variables to make things more dynamic
Use cases
Dev environment - can quickly interact with all your services
Automated testing - easily create the environment for testing
Networking
If you make a configuration change to a service and run docker-compose up to update it, the old container is removed and the new one joins the network under a different IP address but the same name. Running containers can look up that name and connect to the new address, but the old address stops working.
More networking
Containers in the same network can access each others ports directly
Can also look up the hostname of other containers on the same network