What CIOs need to know about containers

What CIOs need to know about containers

Software development in the enterprise is no longer something left to technology companies alone. Rather, organizations across sectors have found the need for apps and software to service both customers and internal stakeholders.

Whether application creation takes place internally or is contracted out, companies are investing in software that best suits their organizational needs, giving rise to new development technologies and methodologies. One such technology — software containers — has allowed organizations to develop in a far more quick and efficient way. 

A recent 451 Research Market Monitor report estimates the application container software market will be worth $1.1 billion in 2017. Growing at a compound annual growth rate of 35%, researchers expect the market to reach more than $3.4 billion in 2021.

Like other new types of technology, technology leaders should be aware of the advantages, opportunities and challenges of leveraging containers. Here's what you need to know: 

Container technology is touted as a way for enterprises to boost the portability, agility and rapid delivery of applications.

"The key enterprise advantages of containers are speed, simplicity and efficiency, mainly around helping developers and related lines of business move faster, onboard developers more rapidly, build and package applications for the cloud," said Jay Lyman, principal analyst at 451 Research. Containers can "more simply create and destroy infrastructure and applications as needed."

Given the mad dash toward digital transformation, container technology could play an increasingly important role in the enterprise by allowing companies to rapidly transform.

"Organizations that are adopting containers today, or looking at adopting them, see them as part of the bigger picture of continuous delivery, becoming more agile and more flexible," said Chip Childers, CTO of Cloud Foundry.

And because many of the innovations around container technology are being created within open source communities such as Cloud Foundry, the breadth of use-cases is quickly expanding.

"Companies are using containers and container platforms … to modernize existing applications, build new cloud-native applications, accelerate big data projects and ... explore IoT opportunities," said Brian Gracely, director of product strategy at Red Hat.

While container technology offers many advantages, the number of organizations running containers in production is still relatively low. This is especially true for enterprises. Clearly, it is still relatively early for container technology in the enterprise, and challenges remain.

The primary challenge for containers is the technology does not offer all of the same capabilities and functionality as virtual machines (VMs), which have been around longer, according to Lyman.

"We expect we will see more displacement of VMs from containers in the enterprise going forward, but it will be mostly a case of mixed use and co-existence of containers and VMs," he said.

Container technologies surfaced about the same time many enterprises began seriously working on moving to the cloud. As a result, containers are often associated with the cloud-based applications they support. But contrary to what many believe, the two technologies aren’t interconnected.

Share it:
Share it:

[Social9_Share class=”s9-widget-wrapper”]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You Might Be Interested In

Can AI Teach Us How to Become More Emotionally Intelligent?

16 Aug, 2022

Emotional intelligence matters more to one’s success as a manager than IQ or technical skill. The principal takeaway: emotional intelligence …

Read more

The Rise and Rise of Price Analytics!

7 Sep, 2020

Recently Netflix launched Rs 199 ($2.8) mobile-only monthly plan in India. CyberMedia Research (CMR) reported that after the release of …

Read more

Why financial firms are missing out by not embracing the cloud

24 Mar, 2016

The financial sector’s high security and compliance standards have traditionally made it something of a laggard in the adoption of …

Read more

Recent Jobs

Cyber Security Engineer – P2

Hybrid (Aurora, CO, USA)

5 Mar, 2024

Read More

Sr. Manager – Data and Analytics Technical Lead

Hybrid (Dedham, MA, USA)

5 Mar, 2024

Read More

Manager, Business Data and Analytics

Hybrid (Troy, OH, USA)

5 Mar, 2024

Read More

Do You Want to Share Your Story?

Bring your insights on Data, Visualization, Innovation or Business Agility to our community. Let them learn from your experience.

Get the 3 STEPS

To Drive Analytics Adoption
And manage change

3-steps-to-drive-analytics-adoption

Get Access to Event Discounts

Switch your 7wData account from Subscriber to Event Discount Member by clicking the button below and get access to event discounts. Learn & Grow together with us in a more profitable way!

Get Access to Event Discounts

Create a 7wData account and get access to event discounts. Learn & Grow together with us in a more profitable way!

Don't miss Out!

Stay in touch and receive in depth articles, guides, news & commentary of all things data.