In maritime logistics containers and container carriers are not really new.
Sitting in the plane, the following thoughts occurred to me…
In fact, containers in IT are a concept which is 1-on-1 derived from these physical containers.
We have seen and read many good and informative blog-posts and presentations about this. Obviously there is a lot of confusion about this as well. In my opinion you should be careful to mix and match too intensively. I think containerization and micro services, for instance have a lot less in common that some would lead you to believe.
This though is not what I wanted to discuss.
I would want to argue that one can containerize a stack too deep (or too high, depending on your viewpoint).
A container, typically, is an isolatable element which can be stacked upon another isolatable element. For instance, a Webserver is stacked upon an instance of bash, stacked upon it’s dependencies, creating an container stack which is capable of serving http-requests at port 80 of the up-address inherited from the IP-stack underneath the bash-instance.
Well, logical. Repeatable, but in a sense also complex, complexity by the sheer number of layers that compromise the stack.
Wouldn’t it be an idea to extend this train of thought and also introduce container carriers?
Just like in the analogy with container carriers in maritime logistics, these would be larger founding blocks on which various containers can be stacked.
- How would this differ from a setup with a regular VM? You would still have the lightweight, easily transportable qualities of containers.
- How would this differ from just stacking containers to create this? It would enable further development of seamless integration of the founding layers of what this container carrier is made up of, improving stability and specialization.
It eliminates the feeling of wheel-reinvention that for me, somehow still remains lingering around software containers. With the ever growing adoption of container technology, as the foundation for cloud-infrastructure, it can for a quick cost-saver.
My thought-train put to paper. Hope it helps someone, somewhere, somewhat…