Wednesday, August 18, 2021

 Why use containers vs. VMs in a modern enterprise?




Why use containers vs. VMs in a modern enterprise?

Thinking about making the switch from VMs to containers? Compare container features against VMs to determine whether you should change where you host your applications.

What are VMs and containers?

Virtual machines divide a server into two pieces, which lets you share the server.

Each VM runs its own software, including the OS, and shares only a minimal hypervisor element that creates the server virtualization itself.

The benefit of this setup is isolation; software sees VMs as separate devices, which means they require minimal interaction.

However, the selection of the right hypervisor matters because the hypervisor's features mediate how it will share the hardware.

Containers are perhaps the most misunderstood concept in IT.

Most users think that a container is a kind of lightweight virtual machine, but a container is a unit of software deployment hosted on an OS (usually, Linux) that can support container hosting.

Hosting differences

The differences between container hosting vs. VM hosting are easily explained.

Server efficiency. 

Every VM runs the complete OS and middleware stack, as well as the applications, which limits the number of VMs that a server can support.

Containers share the basic OS and, in some cases, middleware. Users report between two and six times more containers than VMs can be hosted on a server.

Isolation. 

VM applications are more securely isolated from each other, meaning there is little risk that an application could hack into the server and, from there, to other applications that run on the server.

VM applications are also less likely to be affected by other applications that contend for server resources. Containers might take a performance hit if other applications compete for resources, such as memory or CPU.

Security and compliance. 

VMs seem to be a clear winner for critical applications, as their security measures include a strong segmentation boundary between workloads, guests and the hypervisor.

However, other considerations might further tip the scale toward containers.

Infrastructure and deployment

Containers package software to run in a specific resource environment, which is what container hosting provides, and why containers are more portable.

Standardized container environments simplify operations.

VMs are typically deployed and redeployed through a series of steps, which prepare and configure the platform and then deploy the software.

If the software is made up of multiple interdependent pieces, each piece has to be configured and deployed.

Go through following original source url in first comment to read complete information about containers and VMs

https://bit.ly/3mc7ly9




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