Containers offer a logical packaging mechanism in which applications can be abstracted from the environment in which they actually run. This decoupling allows container-based applications to be deployed easily and consistently, regardless of whether the target environment is a private data center, the public cloud, or even a developer’s personal laptop.
Containerization provides a clean separation of concerns, as developers focus on their application logic and dependencies, while IT operations teams can focus on deployment and management without bothering with application details such as specific software versions and configurations specific to the app.
For those coming from virtualized environments, containers are often compared with virtual machines (VMs). You might already be familiar with VMs: a guest operating system such as Linux or Windows runs on top of a host operating system with virtualized access to the underlying hardware. Like virtual machines, containers allow you to package your application together with libraries and other dependencies, providing isolated environments for running your software services. As you’ll see below however, the similarities end here as containers offer a far more lightweight unit for developers and IT Ops teams to work with, carrying a myriad of benefits.
The Secret of Containerization!
The core functioning of containerization moves around the concept of OS virtualization.
By virtualizing OS, the containerization process typically creates scope for distribution of application across a single host without the need for virtual servers.
Then how application interacts with OS?
Containerization does that by granting applications the access to single OS Kernel, the heart of OS, which runs all the containerized applications in a single machine.
Unlike virtualized environment that calls for OS replication every single time causing overhead, containerization removes the OS layer altogether and shares the Kernel access to the host machine as well as containerized applications running on it.
Containerization served as a ‘a lightweight alternative to Virtual Machines (VM)’, encapsulating apps within a container with dedicated operating environments, related dependencies, configuration files and libraries i.e., referred to as ‘Application Containerization’.
With such functionality, Containerization Services make your applications:
-
Distributed
-
Portable
-
Independent
-
Run-on single server
-
Deliver faster than on VM
Other Containerization Benefits include:
-
Minimum Resources: Run multiple containers in minimum space unlike virtualization that might consume gigabytes.
-
Optimized Efficiency: Only a single OS is used for multiple containers, thus helping to run more containers on a host.
-
More Applications: Elimination of OS layer and applications’ access to Kernel OS make containers smaller in size, thus offering scope to run more applications.
-
Faster than VM: Containerized apps run on OS kernel that is already booted up and require no fresh boot every time like in individual OS in VM. This saves a lot of time and space.
-
Consistency and Flexibility: Run applications successfully, irrespective of platform and configurations. Containers work its way in line with the local environment, in testing or production.
-
Productivity: Application containerization naturally accelerates the process by dividing the bulk apps into individual components. Each of these components can further be divided into multiple containers as microservices, making it easier for developers to upgrade individual services.
-
Version Control: Enjoy the flexibility of tracking versions of your application code and related dependencies. Perform maintain, track, differentiate and roll-back functions among versions with ease.
This Article Was Written & published by Meena R, Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India.
Over the past 16 years, Meena has built a following of IT professionals, particularly in Cybersecurity, Cisco Technologies, and Networking...
She is so obsessed with Cybersecurity domain that she is going out of her way and sharing hugely valuable posts and writings about Cybersecurity on website, and social media platforms.
34,000+ professionals are following her on Facebook and mesmerized by the quality of content of her posts on Facebook.
If you haven't yet been touched by her enthusiastic work of sharing quality info about Cybersecurity, then you can follow her on Facebook:
Click Here to follow her: Cybersecurity PRISM