 Cloud computing concept |
In software engineering, containerization is operating-system-level virtualization or application-level virtualization over multiple resources so that software applications can run in isolated user spaces called containers in any cloud or non-cloud environment, regardless of type or vendor.1 The term "container" has different meanings in different contexts, and it is important to ensure that the intended definition aligns with the audience's understanding.23
Where Containerization (computing) leads. Every connection below has a source: a link in this article, a shared Wikipedia category, or CirrusSearch text similarity. Articles already on your trail are left out.
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The articles this one links to most, weighted towards the introduction.
Each container is basically a fully functional and portable cloud or non-cloud computing environment surrounding the application and keeping it independent of other environments running in parallel.4 Individually, each container simulates a different software application and runs isolated processes5 by bundling related configuration files, libraries and dependencies.6 But, collectively, multiple containers share a common operating system kernel (OS).7
In recent times, containerization technology has been widely adopted by cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and IBM Cloud.8 Containerization has also been pursued by the U.S. Department of Defense as a way of more rapidly developing and fielding software updates, with first application in its F-22 air superiority fighter.9
Container orchestration or container management is mostly used in the context of application containers.10 Implementations providing such orchestration include Kubernetes and Docker swarm.
Container clusters need to be managed. This includes functionality to create a cluster, to upgrade the software or repair it, balance the load between existing instances, scale by starting or stopping instances to adapt to the number of users, to log activities and monitor produced logs or the application itself by querying sensors. Open-source implementations of such software include OKD and Rancher. Quite a number of companies provide container cluster management as a managed service, like Alibaba, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
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