diff --git a/JobTrackerApi/Program.cs b/JobTrackerApi/Program.cs
index cf0dddb..331d66c 100644
--- a/JobTrackerApi/Program.cs
+++ b/JobTrackerApi/Program.cs
@@ -47,7 +47,10 @@ builder.Services.AddDbContext<JobTrackerContext>((sp, options) =>
 
     if (provider is "mysql" or "mariadb")
     {
-        options.UseMySql(cs, ServerVersion.AutoDetect(cs));
+        // Avoid ServerVersion.AutoDetect here because it forces an immediate DB connection
+        // during service registration, which can crash the API if MariaDB is temporarily
+        // unavailable or on a different network during deploy startup.
+        options.UseMySql(cs, new MariaDbServerVersion(new Version(11, 0, 0)));
     }
     else
     {
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index ef84e09..57a6d89 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -45,6 +45,9 @@ services:
       - Email__FromName=${EMAIL_FROM_NAME}
     expose:
       - "8080"
+    networks:
+      - default
+      - shared_services
     restart: unless-stopped
 
   frontend:
@@ -58,6 +61,9 @@ services:
       - "3000:80"
     depends_on:
       - backend
+    networks:
+      - default
+      - shared_services
     restart: unless-stopped
 
   summarizer:
@@ -66,6 +72,9 @@ services:
       dockerfile: Dockerfile
     ports:
       - "8001:8001"
+    networks:
+      - default
+      - shared_services
     restart: unless-stopped
     healthcheck:
       test: ["CMD", "python", "-c", "import urllib.request; urllib.request.urlopen('http://127.0.0.1:8001/health', timeout=5).read()"]
@@ -75,3 +84,8 @@ services:
 
 volumes:
   jobtracker_data:
+
+networks:
+  shared_services:
+    external: true
+    name: jobtracker_shared