Containers-as-a-service providers take some pressure off IT

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  Hand off container management

  Containers as a service saves an organization from the complexities of setting up the infrastructure and management tooling for application containers. Cloud providers update the tools, container images and repositories as necessary. However, CaaS can also be difficult to integrate into existing systems, and security can be tricky to navigate. Read Now

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  Containers as a service in a nutshell

  Ask these important questions: Should you host containers on premises, in the cloud or some mix of both? How much component control is necessary? For example, is your organization willing to be relegated to one orchestration service or prefer to choose its own? Is the organization willing to tie itself to a specific Linux distro? Read Now

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  Pick your containers-as-a-service poison

  Several cloud CaaS providers offer, more or less, the same relief from on-premises, siloed IT attempts at containers, but each from a different angle. Read Now

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  Containers with briefcases

  Containers are highly portable because they are stateless and easily created and destroyed, but the applications they host often are not stateless. This complication requires a storage plan. Each cloud hosting service has its own integrated storage service, and these differences often snag containers that would otherwise move from one place to another. Read Now

1Containers, providers and platforms, oh my

Among containers, cloud providers and management tools, there are a lot of faces at this party. This quick list will keep all those conversations straight.

• Definition

  Amazon EC2 Container Service (ECS)

  Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a cloud computing service in Amazon Web Services (AWS) that manages containers and allows developers to run applications in the cloud without having to configure an environment for the code to run in. Read Now

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  Application containerization

  Application containerization is an OS-level virtualization method used to deploy and run distributed applications without launching an entire virtual machine (VM) for each app.  Read Now

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  Containers as a service (CaaS)

  Containers as a service (CaaS) is a cloud service that allows software developers to upload, organize, run, scale, manage and stop containers by using a provider's API calls or a web portal interface. Read Now

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  Docker

  Docker is an open source software platform to create, deploy and manage virtualized application containers on a common operating system (OS), with an ecosystem of allied tools. Read Now

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  Google Container Engine (GKE)

  Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a management and orchestration system for Docker containers and container clusters that run within Google's public cloud services. Read Now

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  Kubernetes

  Kubernetes, also referred to as K8s, is an open source system used to manage Linux containers across private, public and hybrid cloud environments.  Read Now

2Microsoft Azure doesn't leave container users feeling blue

Microsoft Azure is one of the big three containers-as-a-service providers and is key for many users who want to containerize application workloads. But Azure isn't just for Windows users: One in three VMs hosted on Microsoft Azure runs Linux. Docker partnered with Microsoft in 2016 to develop Windows-native containers. Azure Container Service (AKS) helped Microsoft grow into a top containers-as-a-service provider among a wider customer base than strictly Windows shops.

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  More security on the surface with Azure

  Microsoft Azure's structure is built on Docker and Apache Mesos, the latter of which provides tools for job scheduling and container management and deployment. Mesos kernels operate in much the same way as Linux kernels, which makes Azure highly scalable and a suitable option for organizations with large applications in containers. Read Now

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  Explore the shades of Azure

  Microsoft Azure offers Azure Container Instances (ACI) alongside AKS, and which of the two an organization should use depends entirely upon the application. Applications with several services hosted in a large number of containers are better off in AKS, running on a small cluster of VMs and a container orchestrator. Small applications or test environments that need only a few containers can make economical use of ACI. Read Now

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  Construct Kubernetes clusters on an Azure foundation

  AKS is fault-tolerant and enables some orchestration tool flexibility. Kubernetes is the most popular container orchestrator, but the implementation process takes a little work. Read Now

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  Microsoft buys into Kubernetes compatibility

  To increase the compatibility and usability of Kubernetes on Microsoft's Azure container platform, Microsoft acquired Deis, a company that has played a significant role in the development of Kubernetes services. This buy marked an important step forward for organizations that rely on Microsoft technologies. Read Now

3Containerization services? Try Googling that

Google's contributions to the containerization space have helped propel the technology toward general adoption beyond the bleeding edge, and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), formerly Google Container Engine, has made strides.

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  GKE nodes manage themselves

  While Google's tools and services have made container adoption easier and more appealing to organizations, interest in its GKE has lagged. In a play to attract more attention, the tech industry giant developed automatic upgrades and patches so that users don't divert their time and effort from other tasks. Read Now

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  Google's CaaS learns by itself

  Google integrated machine learning into its container platform. The inclusion fuels its host of services, from container orchestration to security, multiregional storage and AI. Because the machine learning capabilities are built into Google's cloud platform, GKE reaps the benefits. Read Now

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  Google offers hybrid cloud flexibility

  Organizations that want to move to the cloud must still contend with applications that can't leave the owned data center, either for compliance or architectural reasons. These organizations need some sort of hybrid cloud setup. Google established a partnership with Nutanix in 2017 to enable organizations to manage both on-premises and cloud applications through one interface. Read Now

4Go all in on AWS

Amazon Web Services is one of the most well-known cloud services. Users had better be happy to rely on the platform, because its container services are designed to prevent them from spending money elsewhere. With enough market pressure, however, Amazon is backing down from its territorial tools and building in compatibility with other software.

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  Where Amazon ECS stacks up

  Amazon EC2 Container Service (ECS) is a native scalable Docker environment that stands in for external clustering services, thereby eliminating any compatibility issues -- but organizations are restricted to the AWS platform. Differences between ECS and other container orchestration tools leave IT teams with high-priority considerations before committing to any option. Read Now

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  AWS joins the Kubernetes party

  AWS has joined the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and announced Kubernetes support, despite efforts to develop and offer proprietary services to cover all aspects of the container environment. Users hope the AWS commitment to upstream Kubernetes will improve integration, not interrupt the way they already use the orchestration tool. Read Now

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  AWS proposes non-orchestrated approach

  AWS rolled out additional container products at re:Invent 2017. Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS) manages container clusters, disaster recovery and updates. But another new tool called Fargate could render orchestration obsolete for some organizations. Read Now

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  Play nice with difficult containerization services

  A partnership between Red Hat and AWS enables OpenShift containers to run on AWS, as well as Red Hat users to run some AWS services on premises, which broadens AWS' hybrid cloud offerings. Still, many organizations find OpenShift difficult to implement, and there's a shortage of admins with the skills and experience to run it. Read Now

5Expand the CaaS lunch table

AWS, Azure and GKE are the containers-as-a-service provider options that get the most attention, but they aren't the only ones. Organizations that aren't sure the leaders fit their needs have a few other options to assess.

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  OpenStack offers self-service containers

  OpenStack offers Magnum, a container project to run Docker containers, as well as a DIY option that enables users to build their own setup on top of OpenStack on either bare metal or VMs. The Ocata release of OpenStack broadened its range of services, but even so, setbacks have OpenStack struggling to stack up to the big three CaaS competitors. Read Now

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  CaaS -- without OpenStack

  OpenStack is the basis for a lot of organizations' private clouds, and while the integration of Kubernetes can improve ease of use, OpenStack is still more complex than many pros have the resources to master. Some users look at the pairing and wonder if OpenStack even has a place in the future picture. Read Now

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  IBM puts its cloud under your roof

  IBM Cloud Private is designed to bring the breadth of cloud, containerization and microservices benefits via a Kubernetes-based platform to on-premises data centers. Although other providers, such as Microsoft Azure, are in this space, IBM sets its offering apart through strong middleware and enterprise product positioning. Read Now

6Moves by Docker, Kubernetes

Docker and Kubernetes are rapidly evolving container players, and that evolution has put them closer together than ever before. It has also spurred an ecosystem around the technologies.

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  No more headbutting -- friends at last

  Docker offers a container orchestration service with Docker swarm mode, which evolved from a separate tool to part of Docker Engine. As of late 2017, however, Docker also offers native support for Kubernetes, cementing the third-party technology as the industry-leading orchestration tool. Read Now

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  Docker grows more production-ready

  With tandem security additions, such as role-based access control and policy-based automation, Docker Enterprise Edition users can run containers on a mix of OSes and platforms. This makes legacy application modernization significantly easier and broadens the container platform's appeal for security-focused organizations. Read Now

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  Replace hindsight with foresight

  Kubernetes monitoring is maturing with the 2.0 release of Prometheus, an adjacent open source project that tracks instances within the Kubernetes architecture. Prometheus' operation pattern informs developers on application performance improvements, rather than troubleshooting, which enables Kubernetes to better manage applications in any compatible containers-as-a-service platform. Read Now

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  Another container management vendor goes Kubernetes crazy

  Rancher replaced its internal Cattle container orchestration service with a native Kubernetes integration. Consequently, Rancher is better able to implement hybrid cloud services and can centralize cluster management, regardless of differentiated Kubernetes versions and distributions. Read Now