A container renaissance?
Data centers have a new found interest in containers these days. The technology provides an alternative way to host multiple processes on an individual console without using virtual machines (VMs). Containers extrapolate various processes and resources, like memory and CPU, creating an isolated environment equipped with everything needed to run an application. Until recently, however, container use cases were limited to deploying a platform on bare metal. Here are a few container use cases that illustrate how the technology has undergone a renaissance of sorts in the IT realm.
Public cloud portability
Containers are a form of lightweight virtualization, making them incredibly portable. Service providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Compute Platform (GCP) have championed Docker containers specifically because of their portability. Docker containers can run inside both Amazon EC2 and Google Compute Engine instances, allowing them to move from one environment to the next with ease.
Configuration made simple
One of the main purposes of containers is to make configuration simple. A key benefit of VMs is the ability to support any platform with a specific configuration atop an existing infrastructure. Containers are able to perform the same task by breaking a configuration down into a code and launching it. Moreover, containers do this without the overhead attached to VMs. This allows the former to be deployed quicker and consume fewer resources than the latter.
Multiple apps on a single server
Since containers provide a high level of isolation, multiple applications can run on a single server. Although it is, in theory, possible to run multiple application components within an individual VM, the components may conflict with each other, thereby giving rise to application issues. Since containers perform isolation at the level of the operating system (OS), a single OS instance can maintain multiple containers. This helps decrease overhead, which provides additional processing power for the application components.
Code pipeline management
Containers have been championed by those who embrace a DevOps culture, and it’s easy to understand why. DevOps is a term used to refer to the melding of software developers and operations departments. The former is responsible for writing code and the latter is responsible for ensuring those codes run smoothly. The code must travel through several different environments to make it to deployment, each of which is slightly different from the rest. Containers provide a constant, isolated environment, allowing codes to travel down the pipeline from development to product swiftly.
Server consolidation
Containers and VMs are touted for their ability reduce operating expenses by consolidating multiple servers. However, since containers have less of a memory footprint than conventional VMs, they can consolidate more servers. According to Odin, Linux containers are able to increase the virtual environment for each server by three times or more than hypervisor-based methods. In the majority of cases, this decreases the number of required servers, thereby minimizing hardware costs and server management time. Moreover, these virtual environments can be deployed in seconds.
