Experts have thoughts about what is going to emerge in the next generation of technological advancements. According to Gartner, cloud computing spend worldwide is expected to reach nearly $500 billion by the end of the year. Within the realm of cloud application development and DevOps, there is one tech practice that is universal and has been a huge part in taking apps to the next level. This practice is best known as containerization.
Gone are the days of rewriting or repackaging code for different digital environments. Enter containerization, which enables portability and allows developers to set up shop everywhere they go by utilizing container technology.
So, what exactly is containerization? Let’s peel back the curtain.
What Is App Containerization?
One of the trickiest parts of the job for developers is making sure that applications can run successfully in different environments. It is much easier to write an application if you know it is always going to be deployed to and used in the exact same environment with the same operating system and file versions. With containers, your application can reliably move from one location or computing environment to another, without bumping into compatibility issues.
This could be as simple as moving an application from your laptop to the environments used in the SDLC — from test to stage to production. Containerizing your app could also allow you to transfer your application from one cloud environment to another.
With containerization, you “package” together software code with all its necessary components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other dependencies. These codes/files? are effectively isolated in their own “container” and can thus be moved and shared amongst other developers and environments as explained above.
What Are The Benefits of Containerization?
The use of containers helps reduce the environmental variables that developers need to account for and spend time in code to do so. This reduces overhead and development time.
The use of containers can also bring your developers more agility and productivity, which can accelerate development. As opposed to virtual machines, containers have a much smaller footprint, are faster to create, and quicker to start. This means you can quickly build new containers manually — or automatically create or remove containers according to the demands being placed on the application by using orchestration tools.
How Do You Know It Is Time for Your Legacy App to Be Containerized?
Some applications are better suited for containerization than others. Before enacting any change, it is important to perform an analysis for each application. If any of the following are true, it may be time to containerize your legacy application.
1. You already have plans to re-factor your application.
If you already have plans in place to re-factor an existing application, you may want to think about containerizing the application as part of the process. We say this because there is some level of application re-factoring necessary in the process of containerization. You do not have to containerize every part of the application in question, but there are times when you can save time and resources by getting two birds knocked out with one stone.
2. Your app can be loosely coupled.
If you have some apps that can be loosely coupled, containerize those! You don’t have to have all your apps containerized. According to a a 2020 IBM survey, a majority of container adopters have 50% or more of their new and existing applications running on them. Applications that can be easily broken apart will better handle containerization. If your app can be broken down into more individual components easily, you may have an ideal candidate.
3. Your third-party dependencies can be containerized.
Applications today are more and more dependent on third-party utilities and components. If those third-party components have container-friendly versions, that could be a sign those applications are ready to containerize, too.
4. You have stateless apps.
Stateless apps are great for containerization because they don’t save data from one session to the next. You have a clean slate with each use, which means you can containerize apps more easily.
Containerization is a foundational tool in modern application development. It makes life easier for developers because they only have to develop and troubleshoot in one controlled environment. Beyond that, there is minimal work necessary to move and run applications from one environment or cloud to another because of the underlying industry support of the container standard.