Containers, frequently portrayed as an experimental or optional technology, are likely to be an essential ingredient in transitioning traditional companies to the emerging digital economy, concludes a study by Bain & Company.
The Bain authors of For Traditional Enterprises, The Path To Digital And The Role Of Containers come to several surprising conclusions. It’s understood that containers are useful in building next-generation applications based on microservices. Bain says they’re also good for transitioning 20-year-old, monolithic applications.
Traditional companies seeking to avoid being disrupted by competitors and move to a more service-oriented and agile position in their marketplaces will inevitably turn to containers, the authors also concluded. That’s mainly because containers are useful in building software that will change frequently but is still required to run in a highly reliable fashion. Without them, the agility sought by many companies today will be harder to achieve.
Part of the reason that’s true is because Docker came up with a way to format an application and its dependencies in software layers, with one layer able to be updated without the others needing to be disrupted. Placed in a Docker container, an application can be shipped across a network and its basic requirements recognized by a new host, provided the host is running the version of Linux for which the container was constructed. The resulting mobility, upgradeability and reliability give container users an edge over other means of handling software, according to Docker advocates. It’s a conclusion that Bain & Company endorses in its report, although it mentions Docker several times in passing without stopping to specify its technical attributes.
Windows Server 2016 released last fall can now also recognize Windows containers based on the Docker format and host them in data center operations, a move that’s likely to expand the share of the data center in which containers are employed, a development that the report did not refer to.
Bain & Company surveyed 449 business executives and IT managers in multiple U. S. industries earlier this year to produce the report. Bain & Company is a consulting firm with 53 offices in 34 countries and claims it bases its fees on customers’ results, not just advice. The report was written by Jeff Taylor, a Bain partner in Boston; Paul Renno, a Bain partner in San Francisco, and Jesse Klein, a Bain manager in Boston. All are members of Bain’s Technology Practice.
Want to see how 451 Research views the future of containers? See 451 Research: Containers A $2.
