Containerization

Containerization eliminates many of those problems by abstracting the application’s functionality from the host operating system and underlying hardware infrastructure, allowing an application to run across multiple platforms and environments without issues. Developers can use containerization tools such as Docker to spin up a container image (i.e., all the files necessary to run the app) based on the standardized Open Container Initiative (OCI) image specification; the host operating system cannot alter the container’s contents.

Other elements of containerization include the container engine, which can create new containers based on that container image, and mediates between the containers and the underlying operating system. Successfully coordinating containers, especially in sprawling environments featuring thousands of containers running a variety of applications and microservices that need to scale up or down (such as on a huge cloud platform), hinges on effective use of container orchestration tools, which automate container management.

Containerization benefits include portability, as developers can run an application pretty much anywhere without worries around compatibility. There’s also scalability, as teams can quickly add more containers when necessary, and those containers (along with their applications and microservices) can be scaled independently of one another. Once created, containers can’t be altered, which can help with cybersecurity and rollbacks if something goes wrong.