The Virtualization Practice has revitalized, recreated, redone our early Virtual Thoughts podcast as a video podcast (videocast?). Our first guest is John Mark Troyer (@jtroyer) of TechReckoning, and we discuss containers. Somewhere in the videocast is a full list of container technologies, but we concentrate primarily on Docker and its impact.
This is a great conversation covering topics on many minds about containers in production, not just development. It is short and well worth a watch!
This videocast still leaves me with a bunch of questions:
- So, what are your thoughts on containers?
- Are you using Docker, Ravello, or some other container technology in production today (not including virtual machines, that is)?
- Are there plans to use containers?
- How do you bridge the gap between production and development with containers?
- Are there enough operational controls around containers to make them more than a science experiment?
Also, as John Troyer asked in the videocast: Given containers, is PaaS an also-ran? Or are we looking at a new type of PaaS?
Containers are here to stay, but is there enough technology surrounding management, operations, security, and data protection to make them a truly viable option in all but the most specialized environments? At the moment, I would say they are still the future direction of development, as they simplify life for developers. Yet, containers do not simplify life for IT operations. Education is needed in this area, and a brand new common lexicon must be created so that operations, development, and security can understand the new paradigm and change.
There is no constant but change. Containers require IT to become even more flexible. They also require us to stop thinking that one application fits within one virtual machine.
Where are you with respect to containers? Are you adopting Docker, etc., or are you just getting comfortable with virtual machines? Are you working with next-generation applications or with more traditional applications?