We needed to do inference on remote machines stationed at random points across North America.... the machines had work to do depending on external factors that were rigidly scheduled. really easy to make upgrades, and the machines were _very_ beefy so docker-compose gave us everything we needed.... and since we shipped the data off to a central point regularly (and the data had a short shelf life of usability) we could wipe the machines and do it all again with almost no consequences.
I needed to coordinate a few small services and it did the trick beautifully