Containerization is
operating system-level virtualization
OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) paradigm in which the kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' ( LXC, Solaris containers, Docker, Podman), ''zones'' (Solaris containers), ' ...
or application-level virtualization over multiple network resources so that software applications can run in isolated user spaces called ''containers'' in any
cloud
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
or non-cloud environment, regardless of type or vendor.
Usage
The ''containers'' are basically a fully functional and portable cloud or non-cloud computing environment surrounding the application and keeping it independent from other parallelly running environments. Individually each container simulates a different software application and runs isolated processes by bundling related configuration files, libraries and dependencies. But, collectively multiple containers share a common
OS Kernel.
In recent times, the containerization technology has vastly adopted by cloud computing platforms like
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide d ...
,
Microsoft Azure,
Google Cloud Platform, and
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud, (formerly known as Bluemix) is a set of cloud computing services for business offered by the information technology company IBM.
Services
As of 2021, IBM Cloud contains more than 170 services including compute, storage, networki ...
. Containerization has also been pursued by the U.S. Department of Defense as a way of more rapidly developing and fielding software updates, with first application in its
F-22
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is an American single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). As the result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, the ...
air superiority fighter.
Types of containers
* OS containers
* Apps containers
Security issues
*Because of common OS, security threats can affect the whole containerized system.
*In containerized environments, security scanners generally protect the OS but not the application containers, which adds unwanted vulnerability.
Container management, orchestration, clustering
Container orchestration or container management is mostly used in the context of application containers. Implementations providing such an orchestration include
Kubernetes
Kubernetes (, commonly stylized as K8s) is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains ...
and
Docker swarm.
Container cluster management
Container clusters need to be managed. This includes functionality to create a cluster, to upgrade the software or repair it, balance the load between existing instances, scale by starting or stopping instances to adapt to the number of users, to log activities and monitor produced logs or the application itself by querying sensors. Open-source implementations of such software include
OKD and Rancher. Quite a number of companies provide container cluster management as a managed service, like Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Microsoft.
Further reading
Journal articles
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*
*
*
*
Books
* Gabriel N. Schenker, Hideto Saito, Hui-Chuan Chloe Lee, Ke-Jou Carol Hsu, (2019) ''Getting Started with Containerization: Reduce the operational burden on your system by automating and managing your containers'',
Packt Publishing
Packt is a publishing company founded in 2003 headquartered in Birmingham, UK,with offices in Mumbai, India.
Packt primarily publishes print and electronic books and videos relating to information technology, including programming, web desig ...
,
* Jeeva S. Chelladhurai, Vinod Singh, Pethuru Raj (2014), ''Learning Docker'',
Packt Publishing
Packt is a publishing company founded in 2003 headquartered in Birmingham, UK,with offices in Mumbai, India.
Packt primarily publishes print and electronic books and videos relating to information technology, including programming, web desig ...
,
See also
*
Docker (software)
*
Kubernetes
Kubernetes (, commonly stylized as K8s) is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains ...
*
Virtual machines
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hard ...
References
Cloud computing
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