Container Advantages - 7 Reasons to Adopt a Containerized Architecture

Organizations worldwide are adopting containers rapidly. RM estimates that currently, over 3.5 billion applications run in containers, while 48% of organizations manage containers using Kubernetes at a large scale.

The advantages of containers over previous virtualization technologies are compelling. With these technologies, virtual machines (VMs) are becoming obsolete in many common scenarios as they are faster, lighter, easier to manage, and more automated.

During this session, we’ll discuss why containers are superior to virtual machines, compelling reasons to start using containers, and key requirements for successfully implementing containers in your organization.

Containers vs Virtualization

To understand the compelling benefits of containers and the reasons for their rapid adoption, let’s briefly review the differences between traditional virtualization and containerization.

What is the difference between virtual machines and containers?

A virtualized computing environment is built on virtual machines (VMs) pioneered over two decades ago by VMware. Virtual machines are emulations of actual computers. With virtual machines, multiple operating systems can run on one server, dramatically improving resource utilization for enterprise applications.

Hypervisors control virtual machines by isolating them from each other and allocating hardware resources to each VM. CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources are all directly available to each VM.

Virtual machines contain full operating systems, plus applications and libraries, called “guest operating systems.” Because Linux Virtual Machines are not dependent on the host OS, they can be run on Windows machines as well.

A container is a unit of software that runs on top of an operating system (usually Linux or Windows). Virtual machines run multiple applications simultaneously. They do not run multiple virtual machines. A container does not need to run its own operating system, as it shares the kernel with the host and gains access to hardware through the host. Containers become smaller, faster, and more portable this way,

Containers let developers take full advantage of the CPU and memory on physical machines, like virtual machines. With containers, it has been taken a step further.

Use cases in which containers are preferred over virtual machines

The following are three main scenarios where containers offer compelling advantages over virtual machines:

• Microservices — containers are suited for deploying and scaling microservices architectures, in which applications are split into small, self-sufficient components. Each of those microservices can be deployed and scaled using containers.
• Multicloud — containers provide far more flexibility and portability than virtual machines. When software components are deployed in containers, they can be easily “lifted and shifted” from servers on-premise, to virtualized servers on-premise, to public cloud environments.
• Automation — container systems are easily managed by APIs, which makes them ideal for continuous integration / continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.

7 reasons to adopt containers in your organization

• Portability — Ability to Run Anywhere : Several operating systems support the use of containers. For example, containers can run on Linux, Windows, macOS, and many other operating systems. A container can run on a bare metal server, in a virtual machine, or on a developer’s laptop. They can easily be moved between on-premises machines and public clouds, and continue to function consistently across each environment.
• Resource Efficiency and Density : A container requires no separate operating system, therefore consuming fewer resources. Virtual machines tend to be a few GBs in size, while containers tend to weigh tens of megabytes, making it possible for servers to run more containers than VMs. As containers require less hardware, data centers or cloud costs can be reduced and server density can be increased.
• Container Isolation and Resource Sharing : The same server can host multiple containers that are isolated from each other. If a container crashes or an application runs in it fails, other containers running that application can continue operating normally. If containers are configured securely, container isolation also provides security benefits, preventing attackers from getting access to the host operating system.
• Speed: Start, Create, Replicate or Destroy Containers in Seconds : Compared to traditional desktop computers, containers are very lightweight, including their own operating system, code, libraries, and dependencies. In seconds, you create a container image and deploy it. You can easily duplicate containers and deploy them as needed once the image is created. A container can also be destroyed in a matter of seconds. Because containers are lightweight, you can quickly deploy new applications and upgrade features and bug fixes. As a result, the time to market and operational tasks are often sped up.
• High Scalability : Horizontally scalability is made possible with containers. To run multiple instances of a single application, you can add multiple identical containers. Using container orchestrators, you can optimize load distribution by running only as many containers as the application load requires, while also considering the resources available to the cluster.
• Improved Developer Productivity : It is possible to build predictable runtime environments for application components using containers that include all software dependencies they require. This allows them to be isolated from other applications on the same platform. The benefit of this is that from a developer’s perspective, any component that they are working on will be deployed consistently, regardless of where it is deployed. With container technology, it’s no longer necessary to worry that an app runs smoothly on your machine.

Containerized architectures enable developers and operations teams to spend less time diagnosing and debugging environmental differences and to focus on building and delivering new features to their products. A developer can also test and optimize container images to reduce errors and make sure they fit into production environments.

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