Software development was, until recently, a multi-faceted process. Creating a program required separate configurations for different platforms and was also dependent on running additional components. But the growing movement towards cloud-based containerization is changing that. Now, programs stand alone and include everything they need to function properly.
“A container is like having the complete package of the operating system, all the dependencies, liabilities, and everything together so you don’t need any other additional components when you run an application.” Because of its self-contained nature, this enables the software to run faster, more consistently, and more securely. The increased file size is a small tradeoff for the added reliability and durability during building and testing.
The concept is still relatively new—primitive containers called “jails” emerged in 2000 but failed to make much of an impression—but in recent years, it’s been gaining steam, and industry leaders are taking notice. Last year, IBM purchased a company that specializes in open-source container platforms for $34 billion. Minumula suggests that the only reason companies have not adapted containers more is simply because they’re unfamiliar. “The high-level picture is that a business wants to build applications faster or add features to existing applications faster,” he says.
“Containerization has come with huge benefits” for IT teams, says Abby Fuller, Principal Technologist at AWS. As usual, the first step is to come up with a strategy specific for your organization. “A little planning goes a long way,” she says. Massive applications can work better broken down into microservices before containerization scale pieces independently and use resources more effectively. “Companies won’t get a ton of benefit from just wrapping a large, existing application in a container and calling it good.”
Benefits of Containerization
- Integrated across platforms
Integration is perhaps the most significant advantage containerization offers. A properly containerized program will run smoothly and identically on any operating system, making the user experience much more consistent and successful.
A developer can create a program on a Windows, Linux, or Mac machine, where it performs flawlessly. Moving forward, though, problems may arise. “They put all the code together in a QA [quality assurance] environment where a testing team would come in and test the code,” Minumula says. “It works fine, and next you put the code in production. Things blow up. What happened? It’s because the environment in which the code was developed was different from QA and different from production.”
- Efficient testing
The contents of one container won’t interfere with those of another—it can only interact with the other components of its own container. Because of this, conducting software tests is more reliable and flexible. “You’re not moving the code from one stage to the other stage; you’re actually moving the container from one stage to the other stage,” notes Minumula. “That way, the application performs uniformly no matter at what stage of development.”
- Increased adaptability
In a traditional monolithic application, even a minor modification could greatly affect its overall performance. “If you have to make any small change to the application, the impact is going to be high because you need to measure if the small change [you’re] making, is it impacting any other part of the application?” Minumula says. “The advantage of microservice applications is you can break down individual modules into separate applications and you can scale those applications.”
- Improved security
As a container is isolated, it is less susceptible to viruses and attacks from outside sources. On the flip side, if a container’s operating system base is threatened, the entire container is at risk, so developers must account for any potential security concerns during the testing stages.
Through its partnerships with Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, Katalyst remains on the cutting edge of technology. “Being an AWS partner allows our team to constantly be focused on customer success and help them take full advantage of the business benefits AWS has to offer,” says Minumula. “With deep expertise, we are positioned to help customers at any stage of the cloud adaption journey and to help achieve business objectives.”
Katalyst Can Help
As you create new software solutions, it’s not always easy to determine the best methods for development. Reach out to the experts at Katalyst to discuss how your business can meet its goals and the needs of customers.
