Containerization – The Next Evolution of the Cloud

Cloud containers are remarkable tools in the field of agile software development. Containers, evolved from the ‘security’ buzzword, have become an essential element for protecting the IT infrastructure. The trend shows no indications of winding down. Container ecosystems will record a rapid development, with cloud service providers focused on technology improvement.

The popularity of containers grew as a feasible go-to strategy of enterprises for virtualization. This status quo of containers will prevail in the near future, as vendors and open-source community formalize the container ecosystem. Complementing virtualization and low overhead, containers are best suited for the application ecosystem that is inherited from cloud computing, data centers, and VMs.

Evolution of Containers

There has been a marked rise in the evolution of the container ecosystem in recent years, which has made them capable to uphold production-ready workloads. The evolution is not yet over and has given rise to many container platforms to implement modern service and applications with the onus of combating developer problems. 

While every container platform has been built on a programmable, API-driven, and self-service infrastructure, Kubernetes rose as the standard for container orchestration, completely based on its technical pedigree. As more and more organizations embark on their journey to containerization, identifying the imperativeness of data persistence has become necessary for enterprise applications.

Kubernetes excels in this owing to its ability of seamless provision of persistent storage capabilities, independent of whether workloads are scheduled in the cloud or on-premises. These capabilities are attributed to Kubernetes’ Persistent Volume Framework that standardizes the dynamic provision and consumption of persistent storage by application pods.

Container Management and its Implications

There is this one feature requested by prospects and customers in the cloud computing space – container management. One of the many growing optimization trends, containers help to package and run applications remotely in isolated environments and reduce the configuration time during deployment to production. 

The majority industry researches estimate the current worth of the container market to be over $2 Bn. As CSPs commence to plan their container management offerings, a better understanding of whether this popularity of containers is just a hype, or do the customers really want and need the containers is a must. Ambiguities also exist in deciding for the right type of container management required, particularly in cloud computing space.

Container management, analogous to the broader cloud management, involves orchestration, monitoring, security, and optimization. Based on optimization alone, there are 5 key ways to save on the cost of cloud containers, namely, review purchasing options, consider storage opportunities, rightsize the nodes and pods, and turn off the idle pods.

The focus on container management is a must if you plan to leverage any type of cloud container, as they offer opportunities for lightweight and efficient application development. However, likened to an on-demand computing resource, containers also result in wasted spend. As suboptimal, idle, and unused container options will add billions more to this waste, container management must be a part of an organization’s cloud optimization plan.


In a bid to understand the evolution of containers, knowledge on three phases of containerization is necessary, namely, staging and PaaS dominate, container deployment at scale and the take over of containerization services. It is highly likely that CSPs slash costs for container services while beefing up these services with security tools for attracting more customers. Whatever the future holds, the positive impacts of the container evolution on the evolution of cloud computing is evident and is set to endure in the years to come.

The Harmony of the Cloud and DevOps

DevOps continues to make inroads in the technology space, translating software teams to supercharged IT powerhouses. DevOps is now a popular means to encourage teams in better leveraging their skill sets and time for faster building, testing, and deployment of software. The main objective of DevOps is leveraging multi-faceted teams of operations professionals and developers to ensure things get done right with zero errors the first time itself.

The role of the cloud in DevOps is likened to support, enabling collaboration without the downtime of data transition. Cloud computing renders each step of DevOps implementation simple, empowering the development lifecycle. Provided with virtualization and kernels, applications can be developed and tested on a variety of environments through clouds. This further eliminates the requirement for physical machine tests, enhances time savings, and reduces cost in light of its on-demand nature.

Cloud and DevOps – The ‘Go Together’ Relationship

Using DevOps QA teams and developers can work well with the operations team that employs a cloud platform. It also enables developers to set up new environments faster without any help from the IT team. Meanwhile, operations of the infrastructure can be investigated by IT operations, in turn enabling dynamics and security. Cloud computing is the common media here that connects two different teams.

The purpose of the cloud and DevOps is quite similar – providing speed, automation, and agility to businesses. While DevOps stresses on continuous practices of operations along with automation, the cloud is the enabler of automated delivery of computing resources, usage-based cost, and upstream & downstream scalability. Together, the cloud and DevOps solve automation problems for companies.

DevOps holds the potential to drive a dramatic shift through a centralized platform for testing, deployment, automation, and moving applications to production in organizations using cloud platforms. The combination of the cloud and DevOps brings better application performance, continuous feedback loops, and faster deliveries if the key best practices are thoroughly followed, namely, cloud security, automated performance engineering, using the platform-agnostic DevOps tools, and achieving skills in CloudOps.

Securing the Cloud for DevOps

As the cloud grows in popularity and prevalence, more organizations are vying for incorporating the technology while the prices go down as options increase. At present, there are diverse options and making a move to the cloud entails the need for due diligence. Planning is considered as an important factor in the adoption of new technology into your enterprise, and the cloud is no exception.

Another aspect to be considered while migrating your applications and infrastructure to the cloud is ensuring the understanding of the requirements of the organization. Driving adoption of the cloud and DevOps is facilitated when team members can make changes by understanding the way these can help them ease their job. The importance of communication is emphasized by DevOps, and now is the right time to adopt the culture of clarity. 

It is now the time for organizations to get past the changes, pulling ahead based on time-to-market with application services and solutions. DevOps and Cloud Computing together form a powerhouse, driving meaningful IT transformation and directly impacting business goals.

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