Organizations are becoming more and more IT companies. Technology has become the way to develop new services or enrich existing services. The business is getting closer to IT, and ideas come true because the needed technology is accessible to everyone. The use of containers is one of the most important IT trends at the moment and technology is developing rapidly.
What are containers anyway?
A container is a shielded environment in which software runs. Containers do not contain an Operating System; They use the underlying operating system of the (virtual) host. Thus, a host has more processing power left: you can do more with less.
Container technology makes it possible to break down functionality to so-called micro services. This solves a lot of the problems that monolithic applications involve. Organizations are able to develop, test, adapt, and produce software much faster. The quality also increases by automating this process.
Automation is key to improve speed and quality of development
Just like a container can be placed on any container ship, Docker containers can be transferred to other environments. For example, your code or application can easily move from your laptop to the server in your own data center, to Azure and to Amazon. Your software is portable from now on.
Working with Container Services requires a different kind of infrastructure. This consists of software like Docker, Rancher, Jenkins, Github, Linux, and more. Additionally, it is also important to control the configuration of networks, load balancers, linux or windows OS systems and the underlying cloud platform – and this includes the billing and support. This can be Microsoft Azure, AWS, other public clouds. Or, all at the same time, as this can be an important part of your risk- and cost management strategy.
Coding and delivering container IT infrastructures to the coders are two different worlds. Code writers are not infrastructure builders. Developers do not have the knowledge, nor are they intrinsically motivated to learn this. They truly don’t care. They want to spend their time coding and improving their coding skills.
Developers truly don’t care about infrastructure
And because having a cool IT infrastructure is not part of the uniqueness of companies – it’s just something you need to build your uniqueness on – a wise choice could be to find a fitting partner to do this for you. So that the business can focus on software development, thereby creating added value for the organization.
What I’ve seen at the organizations I work with, introducing containers takes a real effort but it is very rewarding. As the CTO of one customer says: “It’s a quantum leap which will directly bring us ahead of our competition”.
Contact me if you are interested in learning more.