Containers have become the latest buzzword in the IT industry these days, bringing forth numerous advantages that have made the business world stop and take notice. Conventionally, IT teams are the ones who would usually derive the most benefit out of shifting to a container based process. Once deploying containers, IT teams could significantly reduce the time required to deploy their applications anywhere, along with simplifying the way these apps could be updated as well as isolated.
However, IT teams are not the only ones being benefitted by the emergence of the container. Recently, programmers too have realized that containers are incredibly advantageous to their work type as well. So if you are a new developer who has just started working with containers, you need to know more about these advantages so that you can acquire the same and deliver more value in your roles for your firm.
But first, let’s do a quick overview of what exactly containers are?
Containers are basically environments that run individual applications but their functionality is different from virtual machines that are there to take your whole operating system to the environment and not just individual applications.
This is where the biggest allure of containers lie as their core functionality allows them to be more efficient at the consumption of resources and ply their craft at a much faster pace than those afforded by other software hosting environments like the one powered by virtual machines.
Containers for developers are now available in the mainstream for use because Docker and Kubernetes made them easy to use, unlike other containerization frameworks of the past which were often complex to use and deploy.
Cloud Migration Is Easier With Containers:
Containers are highly cloud-friendly, making it a whole lot easier for developers to shift their apps to either the cloud or back from it to their own system infrastructure. The deployment of an app remains the same on either of these hosts because containers don’t have different tools when it comes to managing each environment. This eases the job for developers tremendously.
So where the developer wants to go from AWS to Azure or develop an app primarily on AWS right from the start, containers can allow it to accomplish that without any problems.
Microservice Friendliness Is A Hallmark Of Containers:
Monolithic applications have become redundant in today’s world as they didn’t offer the kind of scaling that’s required to run modern-day apps. This happened because apps on monolithic infrastructure had to be hosted on just one server alone.
Then came along the microservices architecture which solved this problem by allowing developers to design apps that could be hosted on an infrastructure that was distributed at multiple points.
However, there is a catch here. Microservices is useful but, you will face an immense amount of difficulty when you want to run each service on it separately and that’ exactly where Containers can help developers out. It provides them with a way through which they can go through with separation of code during the multiple stages of app development.
Kubernetes for developers has been a tool used by the industry to power this task and pave the way for not just building scalable applications but to fast track development and deployment of these apps as well.
Through containers, you can work on any one microservice at a time, thereby allowing you to distribute your development process among many different developers to reach the app activation stage faster or to correct issues in just one part of the app without the need to induce variation in others.
Containers Make Apps Function Similarly On Different OS Versions:
Modern-day apps are often required to run on different OS as well as on different versions within a single OS. This makes application development a tedious job for the developer because it then has to alter or configure the app differently to suit each different version of the OS or the app won’t function correctly.
Apps developed on containers lessen the impact of this issue in a very significant way as these apps will run efficiently on different versions of the same OS without much issue, allowing developers to build apps for different OS in a shorter span of time.
For e.g. if you are developing an app for Windows through containers, it will work the same way on any version of Windows OS, without much issue.
Containers don’t offer cross-platform compatibility yet so you can’t run the same app on Windows and on Linux without working on configuration changes.
Containers Allow Code Re-Induction:
As every developer knows, it’s incredibly difficult to write code for apps or software right from the ground app and every single time they look for parts of code that they can replicate to save their effort and time.
While the ability to reuse code is also available in applications that aren’t working on containers, it takes much more time and effort so usually developers shun it and go straight towards writing the code all again by themselves.
With containers however, this paradigm changes drastically as the container’s configuration files allow you to put in a few commands and import code from different apps with ease. This had made it a lot easier for developers to build apps that have similar features in certain facets that are already present in other apps, either built by the developer itself previously or from third-party apps available elsewhere.
Containers Stem The Flow Of Threats:
If you have gone through Kubernetes fundamentals or have a command over Dockers, you would know by now that one unexpected advantage that containers offer is in the realm of security.
Containers themselves don’t offer any cybersecurity or threat prevention mechanism so they can’t stop threats or exploits from penetrating containers, however, their presence ensures that it’s a lot difficult for these exploits to affect the whole app because each aspect of it is walled off inside a different container, thereby creating an isolated environment which enhances the app’s overall security.
For developers, this makes it easier to control and manage exploits during the development and deployment phases of the apps in a significant manner.
Wrapping Things Up:
The key takeaway from this is that containers don’t just only benefit personnel from IT operations teams. They are just as useful for developers who build and deploy apps and software.