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I think the most exciting thing about containers is actually the infrastructure and tooling around them. The technology for managing containers and container im

I think the most exciting thing about containers is actually the infrastructure and tooling around them. The technology for managing containers and container images is a lot better than that for managing VMs and VM images. As far as I know, there isn't anything comparable to Docker, Docker registry, Docker swarm, etc for VMs, or at least they are outclassed in terms of power and usability. If we could bring all of the benefits of containers to the VM world (including subsecond boot times), I think that could revolutionize at least cloud computing (if not other forms).

alex_hitchins 9y ago
Does CloudStack/OpenStack not allow for container lime management? Again, without much knowledge of containers I am not sure of the comparison. I do know I sometimes get annoyed with something like a web app or service needing a whole OS, to largely do nothing except use resources unnecessarily. Something that can see storage and that has an IP Stack would free up a lot of resources.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I don't know about CloudStack or OpenStack. I don't think the OS is consuming a whole lot of resources on the scale of a web service. You might get some performance improvements from static linkage vs syscalls, but I'm guessing the "performance improvement" story is mostly one of latency (startup times) and not throughput. Mostly the nice bit of getting rid of the OS is improved startup times, reduced attack surface, and an easier-to-reason-about system. This probably impacts tooling as well--you can actually compile your entire image from source code instead of needing to fire up an instance, script changes to it, shut it down, then copy it.
  - alex_hitchins 9y ago
    I'd not considered the reduced attack surface, I'd mostly been thinking of the efficiency gains. It's a very good point.
scentoni 9y ago
The closest match I know of is containers:Docker::VMs:Packer https://www.packer.io https://www.packer.io

alex_hitchins 9y ago

Does CloudStack/OpenStack not allow for container lime management? Again, without much knowledge of containers I am not sure of the comparison. I do know I sometimes get annoyed with something like a web app or service needing a whole OS, to largely do nothing except use resources unnecessarily. Something that can see storage and that has an IP Stack would free up a lot of resources.

weberc2 9y ago
I don't know about CloudStack or OpenStack. I don't think the OS is consuming a whole lot of resources on the scale of a web service. You might get some performance improvements from static linkage vs syscalls, but I'm guessing the "performance improvement" story is mostly one of latency (startup times) and not throughput. Mostly the nice bit of getting rid of the OS is improved startup times, reduced attack surface, and an easier-to-reason-about system. This probably impacts tooling as well--you can actually compile your entire image from source code instead of needing to fire up an instance, script changes to it, shut it down, then copy it.
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  I'd not considered the reduced attack surface, I'd mostly been thinking of the efficiency gains. It's a very good point.

scentoni 9y ago

The closest match I know of is containers:Docker::VMs:Packer https://www.packer.io https://www.packer.io