Docker containers: A boundary between operating system & app

Not an elegant practice and often a taboo subject in IT: keeping legacy systems (old systems) running so that structures and processes that have evolved over many years can be maintained and a gradual migration made possible. The problem here is that old systems can often only remain in place on old operating systems. As a result, every IT department reaches its limits at some point, as the operating system cannot receive the necessary updates.

Containers for more independence

Maintaining legacy systems and the applications running on them with old operating systems is not a long-term solution! A common approach is to transfer an application into containers.

Containers are more independent of the operating system (than the legacy system) and therefore allow the underlying operating system to be updated more quickly and easily, as only the runtime environment for containers such as Podman or Docker is required to start the containers. This minimises the dependency on components of the host operating system.

This means that the host operating system can be updated independently of the required components of the legacy application.

Advantages of containers

Portability: Containers are portable and independent of the underlying infrastructure. This means that applications packaged in containers can be run consistently on different environments, whether on development computers, test environments or in production.

Efficiency: Compared to traditional virtualisation technologies, containers are more lightweight as they share the kernel of the host operating system. This leads to efficient utilisation of resources and enables faster deployment of applications.

Isolation and security: Containers provide an isolated environment for applications, which improves security by minimising potential conflicts and security risks. Each container is separate from other containers and the host system.

Scalability: Containers can be created and started quickly, allowing applications to scale easily. This is particularly important in dynamic environments where resource utilisation requirements can change rapidly.

Orchestration and automation: Container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes enable easy management, scaling and updating of container applications in large, distributed environments. The automation of processes, such as the deployment of containers, increases efficiency and reduces human error.

Container technology at Netresearch

We primarily use Docker for containerisation in our projects. All our customers benefit from this technology during development. Companies such as futureSAX, MDF AG and AIDA also rely on our many years of expertise in containerisation for their live systems. Our technology map shows which other technologies we use and master for our customers.