Why will more businesses head for containerisation in the year ahead - Gurprit Singh, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Umbrella Infocare

It is said, in today’s digital age, Enterprise IT infrastructure is not modernized if it does not have containerised applications or used containers. Containerisation is a form of operating system virtualization where applications are run in portable computing environments called containers. They are abstracted away from the host operating system (OS) and has all that is required for an application to run, such as its binaries, system libraries and tools, configuration files, application’s code and dependencies into a lightweight, standalone package that can be executed. Containerisation is here to stay and it readily gets an entire software ecosystem to run in a reliable way in different computing environments, when they migrate from one to the other. These containerized applications are isolated and have the ability to run on different types of infrastructures such as, within Virtual Machines (VMs), on bare metal and in the cloud.

Globally, the Application Container market is estimated to have a robust growth and is projected to reach US$7.6 billion by 2026, from US$1.5 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 30% over the analysis period, as published by Global Industry Analysts. This exponential growth is driven by the several advantages of adopting containers for development teams, such as agility, portability, speed of app development, efficiency, innovation, easy management with faults getting isolated, besides the high security it offers. Container applications are predominantly used in Production, Collaboration, Modernisation among others, both on Cloud and On-Premise deployments, across BFSI, Telecommunication and IT, Retail and E-Commerce, and, Media and Entertainment, among other sectors.

Containerisation of applications became more popular in 2013 because of Docker Inc. Containerisation has brought about a paradigm in how businesses develop and manage complex application and are replacing traditional monoliths. Many competent and forward-thinking organisations have been using containers to upgrade and modernise their legacy applications, streamline the infrastructure and get to speed up their applications to market. For example, the Docker platforms are leveraged by the Retail and E-Commerce industry for DevOps workflows, enhance software supply chains and secure them.

During the software development lifecycle, orchestration tools like Docker build and deliver containerised applications and Kubernetes supports easy management of applications after deployment. Earlier, when the code developed was transferred to a new location, developers experienced the disadvantages of bugs and errors with the usage of traditional methods. But with containerisation, such issues are eliminated, where the single package of software or container is isolated from the host OS. 

In a Container, there are several layers within the application layer running in an isolated user environment on the top most layer. Below this, are the layers of container engine and its minimal guest OS, sitting on the host OS and its kernel. At the bottom is the hardware of the infrastructure. Compared to VMs, Containers are simpler to setup and easier to manage with lesser overheads and at a lower cost than VMs.  If one Container fails, it does not impact others sharing the OS kernel. It is also portable across digital work spaces. Containers permit agile and automated deployment of modern applications, scale faster too as they are more dynamic. According to Gartner, 90% of global organisations are estimated to be running containerised applications in production by 2026, a rise from 40% in 2021. It also estimates that 20% of all enterprise applications will run in containers compared to lesser that 10% in 2020.

Containers are very much sought after by businesses as they support faster solution development and improve time to market, besides scaling applications to respond better. With multi-cloud and hybrid cloud gaining more traction and usage, Containers can help build applications in the cloud and deploy on-premise as they can be made portable. Furthermore, application designs can be modernised by leveraging microservices and DevOps methodologies for cloud computing. Computing resources can also be put into efficient use, with Containerisation.

An IDC’s 2020 Multi-cloud survey includes the use of Containers among the key priorities to accelerate application delivery. Cloud and Container adoption are seen at the core of infrastructure modernisation and the Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service evolution.  All traditional workloads must be modernised in the first place for any digital innovation to happen.

Today, the number of apps that are generated everyday at an astonishing speed is unimaginable. These apps have become the normal means of connecting with our families and friends, besides business transactions we do in every walk of our lives, be it interacting with our bank, online shopping, paying our bills, gaming or just simply chatting. IDC estimates, by 2023, 500 million new digital apps and services will be developed and deployed and this is equivalent to the number of apps and services created over the past 40 years.