It is an approach to package applications, their dependencies, libraries, runtime environment and related settings of an application into a container. Containers are created using docker images.
These are read only files containing instructions for creation of containers. These images are readily available in public repositories and can be created & stored locally by users.
Container is an executable unit, created from docker image. It is run time environment of the package created by following instructions stated in the docker image.
It is a process that is used to manage life cycle of containers. With this process scalability of the apps can be achieved by adding/removing containers. If app is to serve more load then containers can be added. If there is lesser traffic on the web site, orchestration process can remove containers. Container orchestration can be done by using orchestration engines like Docker Swarm, Kubernetes etc.
Some of the benefits are?
A web application can be broken down into smaller sub apps, each sub app can run into an independent container. This provides isolation of environment & issues making it easier to debug.
Deploying apps across different environments can be nightmare if we have to deploy development code packages & server environment/libraries manually to environments like Staging & PROD. Deploying apps using containers is extremely consistent as containers bundles environment & software files/libraries together. Containers are lightweight & consistent across environments.
Containers are integral components of all automation software which help us design CI/CD pipelines. They make automation testing easy and seamless.
Container apps can be scaled up or down dynamically based on business need. On a day when there is heavy traffic on the web site, using container orchestration service, containers can be dynamically increased. On low traffic days, containers can be removed. It helps organizations in optimization of costs.
FutureSoft has delivered multiple applications based on containerization approach. Our team has expert DevOPS developers who can leverage cloud native capabilities to deploy/scale & secure containers. We understand storage/security/networking challenges associated with dockers/containers. We have extensive experience with AWS Elastic container service & Kubernetes.
