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Container Angst

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Article from ADMIN 72/2022

By Ken Hess

Just because it's new, doesn't mean it's better. How I learned to stop worrying and love the old containers.

The IT world went container crazy a few years ago when Docker first hit the scene. Although I'm into virtualization of all types, I totally missed out on Docker-mania. I never really "got" what all the hype was about when containers had been around for about 40 years. There was never any excitement around them until the whole Docker craze struck the hearts and minds of IT folk. I like containers. They're easy to set up and easy to manage, and there are lots of advantages of a lightweight but robust virtualization solution. I'd been working with containers for years before Docker came along and spoiled it for everyone. Well, I spoiled it for everyone who knew that containers weren't new or spectacular in any way. It didn't matter how long containers had been around, these newfangled, fancier containers were somehow newer and more exciting and something we'd never seen or heard of.

To the whole ridiculous whimsical container sickness, I say, "Bah. Humbug!" I love containers. Containers aren't the problem. It's the madness surrounding them that irritates me. Other container technologies are just as exciting as Docker containers. Podman, for example, is a great container technology from Red Hat. Both technologies have their advantages and disadvantages.

I'm a fan of the old-school chroot jails, Solaris zones, and even the newer system container implementation, system-nspawn. I like the simplicity of these "standard" container technologies. Attempting to create a cross-platform, write-once-play-anywhere technology sounds great, but the problem for me is that I'm required to install so much supporting software that it takes away the lightweight nature of the original idea. I don't necessarily think that every technology must be cross-platform capable. Some things should be operating system-specific or at least operating system-optimized. For example, you can run an Apache web server, PHP, and MySQL on Windows

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