Containerization Technology has become more popular and present in IT solutions recently. Many are questioning whether to introduce containers in their IT infrastructure. We hope to let you be aware of some of the biggest pros and cons of using containers such as Docker and Kubernetes. Following is a list and explanation of pros and cons of a container based solution.

Pros:

• Rapid Performance
  • Using containers for a solution means that you can easily take a container file after testing and put it in to production quick, also containers have a low overhead.
• Lightweight
  • Containers have a low overhead and the files are usually smaller for a solution than doing the same things on a full virtual machine image.
• Security and Isolation
  • Keeping the containers separate from the rest of the system gives most attackers another hoop to jump through in order to compromise your network.
• Scalability
  • Containers can be spun up and shutdown based on demand and usage. Also they are able to be shutdown the same way. Using other software solutions to trigger these events make it scalable on demand.
• Return on Investment and Cost Savings
  • The amount of savings and reduced time to develop or put in production adds up quickly depending on the application.
• Simplicity and Faster Configurations
  • There are very little options needed to fine tune in most cases and containers leave less of the operating system to worry about for developers.
• Continuous Integration
  • Allows testing and image development to be done in a single file before deployment.

Cons:

• Missing Features
  • Since containers are relatively new, many features are missing or still in development.
• Backup and Recovery
  • Backup and recovery of container based solutions have not yet developed in to a scalable or automated solution, thus containers themselves are a bad way to store user data or much of anything dynamic in nature.
• Overhead vs bare metal serve
  • Although containers have relatively little overhead, they still have more overhead than bare-metal.
• Running Graphical Interfaces
  • Solutions using containers have been able to run some applications that use GUI, but gets tricky and lots of times unstable.
• Inheritance of Container Security Problems
  • Having a container means you have to have container software, which means you inherit the security risks of the software in your solutions.

Containers are a great way to reduce time/capital required for successful production deployment. Though with the software so new, many wanted features and solutions to make managing them easier are missing. I would guess in time that a lot of features will be produced and overall stability will increase to a point where downtime is highly minimized, if at all.