Written By: Nisita C.
What are containers?
A container is a software package that contains code, tools, and libraries. Containers are used to isolate and manage an application. All the components that are needed for the application to run are placed inside the container and once it’s contained, the portability of the application goes up, allowing it to run on any operating system and infrastructure. Less human resources will be used during this process and the speed of deployment will increase; however, containers don’t have a security system of their own, which can put organizations at risk.
What is container streaming?
Container streaming is a technology where users can stream various applications and services as containers over the internet. Container streaming delivers the application or service in small layers, which enables real-time updates. This also allows for faster boot times and easy scaling without redeploying the service. To use container streaming, users would need to register for a container streaming service and then install the service’s client software within their device. The key technologies used in container streaming usually include a container orchestration platform, a streaming server, and container registry. Container streaming plays a beneficial role in production by delivering container images to a cluster of servers through the use of a streaming server. The use of container streaming affects the development process by reducing delays and enabling increased agile development due to the quick delivery of updates and features that container streaming provides. However, with all these features that container streaming has, it is still a new and upcoming technology that isn’t commonly adopted within organizations due to the level of skill and infrastructure it takes to implement and maintain it.
What are the benefits of container streaming?
There are quite a few benefits of implementing container streaming for an organization. Some of which are:
- Scalability: Users are able to easily scale their use of applications and services up or down as needed through container streaming. This is very beneficial for organizations whose demand for their applications and services is always fluctuating due to the quick response time to these demand changes that container streaming provides.
- Cost-effective: Container streaming can be useful for organizations to minimize costs and allows users to only pay for the resources that they used.
- Portability: Container streaming enables users to access applications and services from any device connected to the internet. This is beneficial for organizations to give employees access to the applications and services from various devices.
- Security: Container streaming provides a layer of security by enabling users to run applications and services in an isolated environment to prevent interference with the host system and protect against cyber threats.
What are the most used container platforms?
- Docker: Docker is a container platform where users can build, test, and deploy applications quickly and smoothly.
- Kubernetes: Kubernetes is an open-source container platform that is used to deploy and manage containers at scale.
- Kasm: Kasm Workspaces allows users to stream containerized applications and desktops and enables the delivery of containerized workloads to the user’s browser.
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Google Cloud Platform allows users to build, deploy, and scale containerized applications and services quickly.
- AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS): Amazon ECS is a container orchestration service that enables users to deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications.
- Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS): AKS simplifies deploying a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure with serverless Kubernetes.
