What is containerization? What is a container in Docker? Let’s explore the benefits that containerization has brought to the scope of software development.

Benefits Of Containerization

Overview

Hello, readers! Welcome to another brand new blog post and in this blog post, we are going to put some light on a very hot topic of the current time. Over the past few years, the development and deployment techniques have been revolutionized to a great extent. The open-source community has developed many automation software to automate processes. Therefore, application deployment becomes easy and quick with the advent of container software and container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes, Docker, and some more. These software are free, open-source, and come with comprehensive documentation. The container software removes the hassles of software development and lets software admins deploy the applications without worrying about platforms and the other software dependencies. In fact, containers package together application dependencies and the source code. Likewise, there are many benefits of containerization that we will go through in this article by covering the following points.

What is a Container in Docker & What is containerization?

Docker is an open-source container software that is used to make application deployments easier with the help of containers. Therefore, containers enable users to bundle up the software source code, configuration files, database, and all necessary dependencies into a single package. So, developers create a Dockerfile where all these instructions are written and run this file to spin the docker containers in any environment. All this process is called containerization where every application is containerized and run in their isolated spaces in a shared using the same operating system. There are many open-source container orchestration tools that are used to manage the containerized services and the most popular tool is Kubernetes.

Benefits of containerization

In this section, we will explore some of the top benefits of containerization.

Quick deployments

In the traditional application deployment methods, developers need to make serious considerations regarding the environment in which software will run. They need to set up all the required configurations and dependencies manually to make sure of the successful deployment. Containerization removed this burden and took over the responsibility to handle deployment formalities.

Isolation

This is the major benefit of containerization as applications running in each container are isolated and unaware of each other. They use their own resources independently and hence, achieve the utmost level of security and reliability.

Consistency

A Docker image contains all the software dependencies and makes sure to create a consistent environment across multiple platforms. Either it is a developer’s machine or a production machine on the cloud, containerization comes up with the facilities that give a consistent behavior of application deployment.

Scalability

Container software allows developers to scale applications without affecting the whole infrastructure. Software developers can reconfigure the existing infrastructure or can add further containers to enhance the resources. The processes to scale applications require fewer efforts that resultantly let developers focus on other important developments.

Better Security

As there is complete isolation among all the containers running on a network so every container contains its own security layer. However, it reduces the risk factor of any resource clash among the applications such as memory, storage, CPU, and other network resources.

Portability

This is another major benefit among the other benefits of containerization. Containerization makes applications highly portable as they are platform-independent. Developers can easily set up the containerized application on any platform because of containers abstract applications from the host operating system.

Cost-effective

Container orchestration tools and container software are free and open source. They have strong communities that are alive and vibrant. Learning these tools is not difficult and there are many services available that make application deployments easy in the shortest period of time.

Productivity

Free container software brings loads of productivity by automating the deployment processes. In addition, if there is any downtime or mishandling found in the production, there are monitoring tools available for this purpose. Software developers can bundle the software in a package and can share and run on any platform straightway.

Reusability

Containerization facilitates users with reusability provisions. Developers write the code of the business application once for all the platforms. They do not need to write different source codes for different platforms.

Community

This is another major plus of containerization. There is huge support available by the community and users can seek guidance at any level. Above all, there is a space called Docker hub where users can create, share and pull the containerize applications and services.

Final remarks

This brings us to the end of this blog post. In this article, we have gone through containerizations and the benefits of containerization. This blog post will really help you to understand the concept and the usages of containerizing your business applications. There are many container software and container orchestration tools that offer provisions to manage the application deployments. Further, containerization has removed many problems associated with deployments, feature releases and scaling. So, adopt this software development and deployment approach to align with the latest trends and software development practices.

Finally, containerize.com is writing articles on further open-source products. Therefore, please stay in touch with the categories mentioned in the “Explore” section for regular updates.

Explore

You may find the following links relevant: