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You can't really compare VM with Docker. Managing containers with Docker + Kubernetes is far easier then managing VMs. Docker might be replaced with something e

You can't really compare VM with Docker. Managing containers with Docker + Kubernetes is far easier then managing VMs. Docker might be replaced with something else in future (i.e. rkt), but basic concept IMHO is here to stay.

aduitsis 7y ago
What about setup and maintenance of the infrastructure that hosts either VMs or containers? Given a mediocre number of physical machines (say, 40), which is easier, install, setup and maintain a VMWare cluster or a Kubernetes cluster? If someone has any insight, preferably backed by actual experience, it'll be most appreciated.
- kklimonda 7y ago
  Assuming unlimited budget for hardware and licenses, then building a team that can deploy and manage VMWare on 40 nodes will be much easier - however raw VM is not really comparable to what k8s is giving you, so you'll be also solving reproducible deployments, load balancing traffic to your cluster etc. Still, with enough money those can be solved by purchasing more hardware&software, and you'll have easier time finding people who can maintain that over on-premise kubernetes.
  - aduitsis 7y ago
    Many thanks!
- jarfil 7y ago
  VMs are application agnostic, while Kubernetes is a service manager. If you want to run 200 different services on 40 machines, you may find hand crafted VMs easier to create and forget. If you want to run 10 services with different levels of replication and redundancy on 40 machines, then Kubernetes will do that for you.
raesene9 7y ago
small aside, but it looks like rkt is not going to be that replacement. Recent disclosure of vulnerabilities in rkt that Redhat are apparently not going to bother patching indicates they don't currently see it as an active project.
- hardwaresofton 7y ago
  rkt is basically dead and so is rktnetes. However, docker internals have basically been replaced with containerd[0] in this point -- the two front runners in the battle to actually run your containers (and power higher level abstraction tools like docker) are containerd[0] and cri-o[1]. I personally prefer containerd, but there are a lot of people who are obsessed with cri-o (big company backers, from what I can remember), despite the fact that it's chronically behind on features (for example alternate runtimes, runtimeClass support), but they're both excellent. Note that there are also other projects like podman[2] that also aim to serve as docker replacements. Discussion on containerd shim in docker can be found on google group[3] way back in 2016. [0]: https://github.com/containerd https://github.com/containerd [1]: https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o [2]: https://github.com/containers/libpod https://github.com/containers/libpod [3]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/docker-dev/zaZFlvIx1_k https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/docker-dev/zaZFlvIx1...

aduitsis 7y ago

What about setup and maintenance of the infrastructure that hosts either VMs or containers? Given a mediocre number of physical machines (say, 40), which is easier, install, setup and maintain a VMWare cluster or a Kubernetes cluster? If someone has any insight, preferably backed by actual experience, it'll be most appreciated.

kklimonda 7y ago
Assuming unlimited budget for hardware and licenses, then building a team that can deploy and manage VMWare on 40 nodes will be much easier - however raw VM is not really comparable to what k8s is giving you, so you'll be also solving reproducible deployments, load balancing traffic to your cluster etc. Still, with enough money those can be solved by purchasing more hardware&software, and you'll have easier time finding people who can maintain that over on-premise kubernetes.
- aduitsis 7y ago
  Many thanks!
jarfil 7y ago
VMs are application agnostic, while Kubernetes is a service manager. If you want to run 200 different services on 40 machines, you may find hand crafted VMs easier to create and forget. If you want to run 10 services with different levels of replication and redundancy on 40 machines, then Kubernetes will do that for you.

raesene9 7y ago

small aside, but it looks like rkt is not going to be that replacement. Recent disclosure of vulnerabilities in rkt that Redhat are apparently not going to bother patching indicates they don't currently see it as an active project.

hardwaresofton 7y ago
rkt is basically dead and so is rktnetes. However, docker internals have basically been replaced with containerd[0] in this point -- the two front runners in the battle to actually run your containers (and power higher level abstraction tools like docker) are containerd[0] and cri-o[1]. I personally prefer containerd, but there are a lot of people who are obsessed with cri-o (big company backers, from what I can remember), despite the fact that it's chronically behind on features (for example alternate runtimes, runtimeClass support), but they're both excellent. Note that there are also other projects like podman[2] that also aim to serve as docker replacements. Discussion on containerd shim in docker can be found on google group[3] way back in 2016. [0]: https://github.com/containerd https://github.com/containerd [1]: https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o https://github.com/cri-o/cri-o [2]: https://github.com/containers/libpod https://github.com/containers/libpod [3]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/docker-dev/zaZFlvIx1_k https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/docker-dev/zaZFlvIx1...