What Is Container Technology?

• Container Technology Definition

  Container Technology Definition

  A container technology is a lightweight, executable unit of software that packs up application code and dependencies such as binary code, libraries, and configuration files for easy deployment across different computing environments. It’s often referred to as the operating system virtualization as it can run a software, microservice, or an application.
• Common types of containers

  Common types of containers

  Container technology has expanded significantly over the past few years. Hundreds of organizations have adopted container technology to accelerate application development and deployment. There's a variety of choices in containers for organizations to choose from; here are some of the common types of containers:

  • Docker: A popular open-source platform that lets developers bundle an application in an isolated environment called a container. Docker uses the capabilities of a Linux Kernel.
  • CRI-O: A lightweight open-source container engine created by Red Hat. It's the first implementation of CRI (Container Runtime Interface) and a replacement to Docker as the runtime engine for Kubernetes, a popular container orchestration system by Google. Kubernetes can use any OCI (Open Container Initiative) compliant runtime with CRI-O.
  • rktlet: A Kubernetes CRI (Container Runtime Interface) implementation that aims to rival Docker. It uses rkt (or "rocket") developed by CoreOS as the primary container runtime. Rocket takes a security-first approach to address specific vulnerabilities in the early versions of Docker and uses several features of Linux servers.
  • Containerd: A daemon for Windows and Linux from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Containerd can manage the entire container technology lifecycle, starting from image transfer to container execution and beyond. The containerd plugin cri allows developers to use it as the container runtime for Kubernetes.
  • runC: A lightweight OCI-compliant container runtime, runC was initially developed as a part for Docker. It has now become a standalone command-line tool that creates and runs containers per OCI specifications.
• What is container monitoring?

  What is container monitoring?

  Container monitoring is the process of analyzing the performance of containerized applications by collecting metrics, traces, and other data. It provides insights into whether an application meets its required goals and ensures optimal performance. Provisioning and removing a container is a rapid process. The ephemeral nature of containers makes it difficult to track issues, especially in large-scale containerized environments. Container monitoring is essential to ensure a smooth-running application with maximum uptime.

  Automated monitoring tools can effectively help track containers with real-time insights, alerting capabilities, and actionable inputs. Container monitoring tools analyze the complete container infrastructure, including hosts, dependencies, and deployments. These tools can also provide detailed insights around CPU, uptime, etc., for each container to detect and isolate the source of issues. Some tools have intuitive dashboarding capabilities to help forecast capacity depletion and allow users to manage resources efficiently.

  Read more about Docker container monitoring
• Container vs. virtual machine

  Container vs. virtual machine

  Containers and virtual machines differ from each other in several ways. A container virtualizes the host operating system's (OS) kernel and deploys different applications on a single operating system. This provides a consistent deployment environment for applications at every stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC). A container is lightweight and packs only the dependencies necessary to run a containerized application, leading to less memory consumption and high portability. Cluster management tools are used for content orchestration, which automates container deployment, management, scaling, and networking. Popular cluster management tools include Kubernetes, Apache Mesos, and Docker Swarm.

  In contrast, a virtual machine (or VM) emulates a physical computer system with CPU, memory, disks, etc. VMs are considered virtual computers and can run multiple operating systems on a single computer system. They do so with the help of a hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) that runs VMs using resources of the underlying physical hardware. Popular VM software includes Azure VM, VMware Workstation Pro, etc. Virtual machines consume more memory and are less portable than containers. Running multiple virtual machines on a single physical server can sometimes lead to performance instability. Organizations use VM monitoring tools to analyze and maintain the performance of their virtual machines across hybrid, cloud, and on-premises environments. These tools monitor the health of the entire virtual environment and efficiently resolve performance-related issues.
• What is containerization?

  What is containerization?

  Containerization is the process of OS-level virtualization where application code gets bundled with all its libraries, configuration files, and other necessary dependencies in an executable called a container. Containerization became popular in 2013 with the rollout of the Docker engine. Containerization builds and runs applications by isolating the containers from the host operating system. The "build once, run anywhere" approach makes it easy to run containers across any environment, platform, or cloud.
• Virtualization vs. containerization

  Virtualization vs. containerization

  Virtualization involves running multiple operating systems in a layer abstracted from the underlying hardware. It creates a simulated computing environment by using the resources of a single physical server. Containerization allows users to deploy multiple applications on the same host operating system. Containerization encapsulates an application in a container along with its dependencies. It doesn't involve installing an OS for different virtual machines; it uses the host OS.

  Virtualization is best suited for applications requiring full OS functionality or testing apps across different operating systems. It leads to fewer hardware costs. Organizations should use containers to fit in more applications on a single server as they consume less space and RAM.
• Benefits of containerization

  Benefits of containerization

  IT organizations have widely adopted containerization to effectively manage and deploy applications. Benefits of containerization include:

  • Extremely portable: As a container packs in all the application dependencies, developers can easily move containerized applications between on-premises locations, cloud, and other environments without integration-related issues.
  • Scalable: Containerization allows rapid scaling of applications on a microservice level. Developers can quickly scale parts of a containerized application without impacting the entire application.
  • Speedy deployment: With Docker containers, developers can create a master version of an image (containerized application) for seamless deployment on demand.
  • Promotes business continuity: Multiple applications can be packaged into different containers, so a disturbance in one container won't affect the operation of others.
  • Secure: Containerization offers complete application isolation. This makes it very safe as every application can work independently in separate containers.
  • Lightweight: Containers are incredibly lightweight and need fewer server resources than traditional virtual machines.