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New container solutions for Linux

Young and Wild

Article from ADMIN 31/2016

By Martin Loschwitz

Several new virtualization approaches based on Linux cgroups and namespaces technologies promise a plethora of previously unseen benefits.

Ever since Docker started dominating daily conversations, more than a few observers have predicted that virtualization with KVM or Xen would suffer declines. Only time will tell whether these prophecies are true, but certainly containers have a lot going for them. In a direct comparison with full-fledged virtualizers, containers have an advantage with a high density of virtual environments on the virtualization host.

As commercial interest in containers grows, so does the number of solutions available on the market. While LXC and Docker have been vying for users' attention, VMware has introduced its own container approach (Photon OS), as has CoreOS, which has departed from Docker. Meanwhile, Canonical has launched a third product, LXD.

For administrators, it is difficult to tell at first glance which of these solutions is the correct choice for a given application. In this article, I provide an overview of the latest container approaches and clarify which is the best fit for different application scenarios.

The King of the Hill: Docker

I still rank Docker [1] (Figure 1) as "young and wild," even though it is an established solution, because no other container solution has attracted so much attention, seen such massive growth in terms of features, and impressed the critics.

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