What are cloud con­tain­ers? Vir­tu­al­iza­tion in the cloud

Cloud con­tain­ers vir­tu­al­ize operating systems including all de­pen­den­cies and thus work isolated from other ap­pli­ca­tions. Thanks to their flex­i­bil­i­ty and resource-saving design, they’re worth con­sid­er­ing for business use.

What is a cloud container?

Cloud computing has become in­creas­ing­ly important for companies. There are plenty of ad­van­tages of working in a cloud, ranging from immense cost savings and greater flex­i­bil­i­ty to a broader selection of software, storage, and servers. In addition to tra­di­tion­al cloud solutions, major companies like Google and Microsoft are in­creas­ing­ly adopting cloud con­tain­ers. It is estimated that each of these companies employs several billion cloud con­tain­ers per week, high­light­ing the immense value and benefits of this tech­nol­o­gy. Before delving deeper into these ad­van­tages, let’s first address the question of what cloud con­tain­ers actually are.

Cloud con­tain­ers are self-contained and abstract software units that enable the vir­tu­al­iza­tion of a specific operating system. They en­cap­su­late the entire in­fra­struc­ture, including the CPU, working and file memory, libraries, and network con­nec­tions, among other com­po­nents. These con­tain­ers operate in complete isolation from other ap­pli­ca­tions or con­tain­ers, requiring only access to the kernel of the host system. Cloud con­tain­ers offer re­mark­able resource ef­fi­cien­cy and allow for cus­tomiza­tion based on specific workloads without the need to modify the entire system. Similar to how a shipping container can be seam­less­ly trans­ferred between ships, ap­pli­ca­tions within a cloud container can be easily migrated to different en­vi­ron­ments.

How do cloud con­tain­ers work?

Cloud con­tain­ers operate in a manner similar to con­ven­tion­al con­tain­ers that have long been employed in software de­vel­op­ment. Each cloud container vir­tu­al­izes its in­fra­struc­ture, relying on the un­der­ly­ing operating system. Within the cloud container, all necessary de­pen­den­cies, con­fig­u­ra­tions, and libraries are en­cap­su­lat­ed alongside its virtual system. These elements col­lec­tive­ly con­sti­tute a container image, which can be executed by the container engine. This also makes it easy to migrate to another en­vi­ron­ment. Each cloud container is com­plete­ly isolated from other ap­pli­ca­tions.

Within a cloud en­vi­ron­ment, multiple cloud con­tain­ers can coexist, sharing a common operating system core. The in­di­vid­ual files thereby remain light­weight. The host system imposes lim­i­ta­tions on the access of a single cloud container to physical resources, ensuring fair resource al­lo­ca­tion and pre­vent­ing one container from mo­nop­o­liz­ing system per­for­mance. In the event of errors, only the affected cloud container is impacted, while the sur­round­ing ap­pli­ca­tions and the host system remain un­af­fect­ed by such issues or in­ten­tion­al mod­i­fi­ca­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, when migrating cloud con­tain­ers, all de­pen­den­cies are carried along, elim­i­nat­ing the need for extensive re­con­fig­u­ra­tion.

What are cloud con­tain­ers being used for?

Cloud con­tain­ers have a wide range of potential ap­pli­ca­tions due to their design and char­ac­ter­is­tics, making them an ideal solution for various workloads. Some of the most common use cases include:

• Cloud­na­tive ap­pli­ca­tions: Cloud­na­tive ap­pli­ca­tions benefit from cloud con­tain­ers primarily due to their minimal resource con­sump­tion. It is thus possible to host a large number of cloud con­tain­ers within a single virtual machine and place them in close proximity to the operating system.
• Hybrid Cloud and Multi Cloud: In a hybrid cloud, cloud con­tain­ers are used to run workloads across different en­vi­ron­ments. It’s easy to switch from one cloud to another because the cloud container includes all the needed elements. At the same time, this way of working allows admins to retain a better overview of all de­ploy­ment locations. This is ben­e­fi­cial in a multi-cloud approach.
• Machine Learning: Because in­di­vid­ual al­go­rithms can be run in different con­tain­ers without affecting each other, the technique is the perfect en­vi­ron­ment for efficient machine learning.
• Mi­croser­vices: Mi­croser­vices are small, in­de­pen­dent functions that make up a larger ap­pli­ca­tion. One of the key ob­jec­tives for mi­croser­vices is to execute quickly and consume minimal resources. Deploying mi­croser­vices through cloud con­tain­ers perfectly aligns with these re­quire­ments, as con­tain­ers are in­her­ent­ly light­weight in nature.
• Migration: As mentioned earlier, cloud con­tain­ers are ideal for migration because all de­pen­den­cies and con­fig­u­ra­tions are included and decoupled from other ap­pli­ca­tions. So if an ap­pli­ca­tion needs to be moved, a cloud container is perfect for that.
• Mod­ern­iza­tion: Since cloud con­tain­ers are becoming in­creas­ing­ly important and are already being used in many companies, their im­ple­men­ta­tion is also suitable for mod­ern­iz­ing your own system as well as workflow.
• Batch pro­cess­ing: Cloud con­tain­ers can also play an important role in the area of process au­toma­tion. They are suitable for batch pro­cess­ing, which doesn’t require human in­ter­ven­tion, since their de­pen­den­cies as well as their en­vi­ron­ment do not have to be redefined sep­a­rate­ly.

What ad­van­tages do cloud con­tain­ers have?

Cloud con­tain­ers offer numerous ad­van­tages for busi­ness­es and are worth con­sid­er­ing. Among the most important arguments in their favor are:

• Flex­i­bil­i­ty: Cloud con­tain­ers are a flexible and efficient solution. By isolating them from other ap­pli­ca­tions, container images can be in­di­vid­u­al­ly con­fig­ured and utilized. Migration between different en­vi­ron­ments is straight­for­ward, enabling seamless work across various platforms.
• Low cost: The cost factor should be con­sid­ered in any case. They enable low expenses while allowing for the si­mul­ta­ne­ous de­ploy­ment of numerous con­tain­ers side by side.
• Space re­quire­ments: Cloud con­tain­ers are a par­tic­u­lar­ly space-saving solution. Through the vir­tu­al­iza­tion of CPU, memory, and con­nec­tions, they occupy minimal space in the cloud. System resources are also utilized sparingly.
• Scal­a­bil­i­ty: Cloud con­tain­ers can scale ef­fort­less­ly as workloads increase. This ensures users have the necessary resources available for all ap­pli­ca­tions, promoting flex­i­bil­i­ty. Likewise, when demand decreases, resources are ef­fi­cient­ly managed without un­nec­es­sary al­lo­ca­tion.
• Isolation: The isolation of in­di­vid­ual cloud con­tain­ers has a positive effect because problems or errors within one container don’t have a negative impact on the sur­round­ing con­tain­ers, enabling safe ap­pli­ca­tion testing and faster bug iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.
• Security: Cloud con­tain­ers provide a high level of security. Isolation plays a role in this, as does the ability to define security per­mis­sions for each container in­di­vid­u­al­ly. However, con­sci­en­tious man­age­ment is essential for secure handling of cloud con­tain­ers.
• Developer friend­li­ness: Cloud con­tain­ers are an optimal choice for de­vel­op­ers. De­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion can take place within the same en­vi­ron­ment, fa­cil­i­tat­ing seamless workflows. The ease of migration allows ap­pli­ca­tions to be tested on different systems and optimized ac­cord­ing­ly.

What software is rec­om­mend­ed for cloud con­tain­ers?

Many providers offer Container as a Service (CaaS) options. These may be highly suitable depending on the intended use. The open-source container platform Docker is always suitable. Docker con­tain­ers are created virtually and contain all de­pen­den­cies and con­fig­u­ra­tions in their image. To use these cloud con­tain­ers, you’ll find a com­pre­hen­sive Docker tutorial in our Digital Guide.