The Evolution from Virtual Machines to Containers
Overview
In this article, we will see what virtual machines and containers are about and dive deeper into the same.
Enterprises today need to be fast & work with agility. To remain competitive, they must be able to quickly deploy new software and be able to adjust their IT infrastructure to meet changing demands easily.
Engineers who are tasked with ensuring the organization's ability to quickly deploy new software and adjust their IT infrastructure as needed face the challenge of creating a dynamic, secure, and reliable environment. They also need applications that can run across various environments. Meeting these requirements can be difficult.
In the past, it was even more challenging, but thankfully, the world of computing has undergone a tremendous evolution in a short period. We will go through the tremendous changes that took place.
Introduction
In the last two decades, we have seen three major eras of application deployment. It has all led to today's virtual machine and container approach.
The first era involved applications running on personal computers and physical machines.
The second era saw the rise of virtual machines, allowing applications to run without being tied to specific hardware.
The current era is characterized by the use of containers, which has increased efficiency and agility.
We will examine the benefits and limitations of each era and how they have driven the industry to continue evolving. It is wonderful how the world has moved to virtual machines and containers but continues to evolve.
Evolution One: Personal Computers
The use of personal computers has greatly impacted our lives, and the way businesses operate. Now software applications were among the most common and powerful products available, but creating them was still complex.
Historically, Deploying Applications has Required Four Essential Components
- Hardware (PCs and servers)
- An operating system (e.g. Linux, macOS, Windows 10)
- Libraries (application dependencies)
- The application (business logic)
At first, this approach seemed to work well, but its limitations became clear as businesses grew and the number of applications increased.
Evolution Two: Virtual Machines
In the early 2000s, virtualization was introduced to reduce the dependencies needed for application deployment and address some of the challenges of using individual PCs.
Virtual machines (VMs) became popular among organizations looking to become more agile. VMWare was the first to offer VMs, followed by Microsoft, Citrix, and Oracle.
Virtualization technology allows organizations to run applications on virtual hardware instead of physical hardware, improving consistency and reducing attack surfaces.
However, this technology also had its shortcomings. VMs still require a significant amount of system resources and the configuration and maintenance of an entire operating system.
Additionally, VMs needed to be better suited for microservice architectures because they used full, separate operating systems.
Evolution Three: Containers
In recent years, containers have become popular to address the challenges of both PC-centric and VM-driven application deployment. The open-source Docker technology, which was introduced in 2013, has helped drive the widespread adoption of containers.
Advantages of Containers over Virtual Machines
According to a study published on Cornell University's arXiv archive, it takes 23 minutes to create a cluster using Docker containers, compared to 46 minutes using VMs.
Developers have widely adopted containers because they are lightweight, low resource usage, backward compatible, and compatible with modern application architectures like microservices.
Containers are easy to start, run, and scale and use fewer resources, which allows for increased application density. They can also be used with existing applications with little to no modification, making them a useful tool for modern application development.
Moving Forward with Containers
Containers are currently the most important application deployment method. They provide a portable and reliable environment for application development, testing, and deployment.
As business needs grow more complex, organizations need speed and flexibility at lower costs, and containers allow technology teams to meet these demands quickly. The top factors driving the adoption of containers over virtual machines are management overhead, performance, and VMWare licensing fees.
The container industry is evolving rapidly, and as it continues to address issues related to security, ease of use, and the overall ecosystem, more organizations, including large enterprises, will adopt containers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the use of containers for application deployment has evolved over the past two decades, starting with personal computers and physical machines, then virtual machines and containers. Containers have become popular due to their lightweight nature, low resource usage, backward compatibility, and compatibility with modern application architectures such as microservices.
They provide a portable and reliable application development, testing, and deployment environment. The container industry is evolving quickly, and as it continues to address issues related to security, ease of use, and the overall ecosystem, more organizations will adopt containers.
Virtual machines and containers are the de facto methods to deploy modern applications today.