Report Highlights Enterprise Container Adoption Trends
What’s standing between enterprises and container adoption? EMA Top 3 explains in a new report about containers in the enterprise.
The report, which was released March 1, contains insights based on a survey of 300 enterprises about the top priorities that are shaping their approach to container adoption in 2018.
Major findings include the following.
Compliance Issues Stifle Container Adoption
The report says that integrating containers into existing compliance frameworks is the “primary container-related pain point” for enterprises today.
The challenge stems from the fact that containers have a different life cycle than that of the virtual machines for which existing compliance policies were designed.
The answer seems simple enough: Update company compliance policies to accommodate containers and find ways to protect data within containerized environment that meet compliance requirements even if the containers themselves have a short life cycle.
Of course, changing enterprise policies is easier said than done. We imagine that this issue will be solved soon enough, as it’s not an intractable sort of problem. But compliance practices won’t change overnight.
Establish a Business Case for Containerization
Containers offer lots of benefits. But that doesn’t mean you should containerize everything.
Instead, the report says, it’s important to confirm that containers will add clear business value before you move workloads inside them.
This makes perfect sense, but it can be easy to forget. Just because you can, for instance, run “Doom” inside a Docker container doesn’t mean you should. (I know: Docker Doom is probably supposed to be a joke. But it is an interesting example of the type of stuff you can find needlessly existing inside containers these days.)
Containers Need to Integrate with Existing Infrastructure
According to the report, the container technologies that enterprises choose to adopt are ones that integrate with existing technology and infrastructure. They must be compatible with the tools and resources that the enterprise already owns.
This should be obvious, but it can be easy to forget. We live in a world where exciting new container tools are rolling out every day. Many vendors prioritize getting their container-related products to market more than ensuring compatibility with legacy technologies.
The message: If you want to succeed in the container market, don’t overlook the importance of making your solutions work with legacy technologies and infrastructure, too.
Kuberenetes Dominates
The report calls Kubernetes “today’s de facto standard container scheduling and orchestration framework.” It doesn’t mention Swarm or other Kubernetes alternatives.
We’ve been saying for some time that Kubernetes is killing the container orchestrator market. But if you need confirmation based on what enterprises are actually doing, the report provides another data point.
Conclusion
These are just some of the enterprise container trends that EMA Top 3 highlights in the report. The full report is available for purchase.
