Nearly every business is chasing enterprise agility. And for a good reason. According to a study by Economist Intelligence Unit, organizations that are agile increase revenue 37% more quickly than those that are not agile. The former also tends to see 30% more profits than the latter.
While enterprise agility is affected by several factors, one of the most critical is the underlying IT infrastructure. And a key differentiator for most organizations is how they choose to run their applications. We have seen containerization or containers on cloud bring the advantage that businesses are looking for.
It offers a great level of flexibility made possible through its abstraction capabilities that can be widely applied. What’s more, containers can improve app quality by nearly 78% - a huge gain for businesses. However, for many businesses, the lack of or limitation in skills and manpower to execute their vision for agility can pose a roadblock to taking this route and optimizing one of the most innovative solutions - containers on cloud.
Consider this: research shows that the no.1 challenge organizations quote when it comes to adopting Kubernetes (a container consolidation system) is this very limitation. This is why businesses opt for containerization as a service (CaaS).
What is Containerization as a Service (CaaS)?
Containerization as a service or container as a service is a cloud computing offering that cloud services providers deliver to help customers effortlessly achieve their containerization goals without breaking a sweat. It empowers software and IT development teams to integrate, organize, deploy, scale and manage their containers with the help of container enabled virtualization. Container cloud service solutions are fast becoming the answer to businesses’ need for agility and demand for freedom.
How Does Containerization Work?
Containerization works by encapsulating all the elements that would be needed for an application to be deployed, operated and managed smoothly within an almost self-sufficient unit. Each container is made to be lightweight and capable of functioning in different cloud environments with ease.
Benefits You Gain with Containerized Applications or Containers on Cloud
Enhanced Agility:
Develop and deploy containers quickly as container as a service offers access to the right automation tools - sometimes in just seconds. Containerized applications are designed to work in different cloud environments. Even in isolated cloud environments.
They allow software developers to manage containers, troubleshoot and alter application code stack without having to interact with the physical hardware and operating system running. Updates can be carried out in very little time.
It's not just building and deploying that happens fast with containerized apps. Migration can also be carried out relatively quickly compared to environments that run on virtual machines. Scalability too is enabled more easily with containerization compared to when it’s done on virtual machines.
Greater Resource Optimization:
With containers as a service, businesses get more out of their resources as the service allows them to run apps the way they were meant to be used. Dedicated teams can ensure that the apps are being used to their full potential.
Only a few resources are required to manage containers - from bare metal resources to one virtual machine (VM) on a server is all they need. With the same resources that it takes to power a virtual machine, your provider of CaaS services will be able to run quite a few containers.
That's because virtual machines contain large files compared to CaaS. Now imagine this - when this level of efficiency is achieved across nearly every parameter, the cost benefits (from just reduced engineering operating costs) that your containers as a service provider passes on to you will be tremendous.
Better Energy Efficiency:
Additionally, they require less energy to run. That’s because several containers use the same operating system. Every container unit works within its own container environment and with its own file system. When a container is not in use, it can power off or run only those processes that are essential within operating systems.
All in all, the energy efficiency that comes with managing containers is two-fold - its characteristically small footprint and its sustainability.
Categorizing Containers as a Service for Businesses
To understand how best to categorize containers as a service for your business, it’s important to find the answer to this question, “Is containerization Iaas or Paas”? We have seen that while CaaS can fall in the middle of the spectrum with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) on either end, in most cases, it leans a little more heavily towards the former.
The reason: PaaS leverages virtual machines whereas an Infrastructure as a Service environment evidently relies quite heavily on containers.
Is Your Organization Positioned to Leverage the Benefits of CaaS Services?
Based on reports by Gartner, by 2024, we will be seeing nearly 15% of enterprise applications running in a container environment - a marked increase from the 30% it was at when the study was conducted in 2020.
If you are yet to make the dive into the world of CaaS consider all the key factors that would make your business a strong candidate to benefit from CaaS services that use underlying infrastructure.
Does your organization have micro application deployments?
If yes, then CaaS services can be a good idea as each container resides within a CaaS that utilizes the underlying operating system (OS) and code base that is unique to it. Its network protocols are usually established beforehand. This is another key capability that lends to any CaaS service making enterprises agile - it enables development teams to deploy with very little loss of time and effort.
Does your organization require auto-scaling and capabilities for orchestration management?
If yes, a CaaS service could be the right step. That’s because, container as a service typically comes with these capabilities built-in. This makes container performance tracking fairly easy. It requires your organization’s IT team to spend lesser time for individual deployments making container orchestration management easier.
Does your organization run a diverse range of workloads?
If yes, not only will you need container as a service, but also require the support of an open source platform - for grouping, running and managing containerized applications - like cloud Kubernetes. Kubernetes manages resources and traffic for cloud applications.
Additionally, it allows development teams to run service-based applications more smoothly. It manages container images and handles the scaling of container units.
Maximize the Advantages of Container as a Service with the Right Cloud-based Service Provider
While containers can be the solution for the enterprise agility needs of businesses, we have seen that managing them can be time and effort intensive. It requires the support of the administrative teams of CaaS providers that have domain-specific knowledge to help the business achieve its containerization and microservices goals.
One of the open-source platforms that can require help to navigate is cloud Kubernetes - a CaaS platform. As a cloud container service provider who manages containers on cloud and container engines, we understand this and have designed a suite of container as a service solutions that our clients can leverage for managing servers and their CaaS resources.
With Cloud4C’s cloud services for container technologies, you gain access to round-the-clock support backed by over 2000 experts with cloud certifications. You can rest assured that your container management needs are being handled by a CaaS provider who is among the most trusted providers of managed cloud computing services in the Americas, MEA and APAC.
We offer a Zero Friction Cloud Migration Model supported by the well-recognized cloud adoption factory approach. More than 25000 databases and apps have been migrated by our teams that have clocked over 1 billion hosting hours in managing 40000+ virtual machines.
To know more about what we at Cloud4C provide in the area of container as a service or managed Kubernetes as part of our application modernization and container services offerings, connect with us.
