Containers & Docker: Emerging roles & future of Cloud technology

Abstract

Container-based virtualization uses single kernel to run multiple instances on an operating system and virtualization layer runs as an application within the operating system. It is also called operating system virtualization and in this approach, the kernel of operating system runs on the hardware node with different isolated guest virtual machines (VMs) called containers. The container-based virtualization doesn't require each guest to run a completely installed operating system. This virtualization approach also helps to improve performance since there is a single operating system taking care of all hardware calls. The disadvantage of container-based virtualization is that each guest must use the same operating system the host uses. In hypervisor-based virtualization the virtual machine is not a complete operating system instance but its partial instance of the operating system and hypervisor allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host. However in container-based virtualization, a kernel is run with several different virtual machines installed on top of it. The container-based virtualization is used in Linux environments like Parallels Virtuozzo and open source OpenVZ project. This paper highlights the role of Container based virtualization and Docker in shaping the future of Cloud technology. The adoption of containers will continue to grow and majority of Microservice applications will be built on the containers in the future.