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Containerisation makes much more sense than virtualisation in a lot of areas: * lower runtime overhead * quicker deployment time * smaller image foot print

Containerisation makes much more sense than virtualisation in a lot of areas: * lower runtime overhead * quicker deployment time * smaller image foot print Plus most of the advantages of VMs can still be applied. However it does massively depend on individual use cases. Qubes aims to be ultra secure and containers in Linux weren’t up to that task at the time (the situation has since improved massively).

StreamBright 5y ago
- lower runtime overhead - quicker deployment time - smaller image foot print Firecracker beg to differ. I think you can do virtualisation and have all three you listed.
- laumars 5y ago
  Sure. But for every edge case where virtualisation bridges the gap, there will be containerisation solutions that further the gap too. Also I’m not really in the mood to engage in a dumb flame war. I’m just answering the question as to why some people favour containers for some workflows. If firecracker works for you then keep at it.
throwawayboise 5y ago
With modern hardware support for virtualization, is runtime overhead still a big deal (assuming your virtual environments are not emulating some other CPU?)
- laumars 5y ago
  Depends on the industry. For general purpose computing it’s generally not an issue but it does matter for some specific workflows. I tend to look at it the other way though: given containerisation is so easy these days, what are the compelling reasons to run virtual machines. Neither is a wrong answer though.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    VMs still provide better isolation and security, or is that no longer true?
    - laumars 5y ago
      They do but not by a significant margin these days. The kind of domains where this is an issue isn’t what you’re average engineer would be concerned with. Where VMs do help the average engineer is they have more secure defaults. It’s pretty easy to accidentally run containers insecurely on Linux (FreeBSD jails are a better story though)

StreamBright 5y ago

- lower runtime overhead - quicker deployment time - smaller image foot print Firecracker beg to differ. I think you can do virtualisation and have all three you listed.

laumars 5y ago
Sure. But for every edge case where virtualisation bridges the gap, there will be containerisation solutions that further the gap too. Also I’m not really in the mood to engage in a dumb flame war. I’m just answering the question as to why some people favour containers for some workflows. If firecracker works for you then keep at it.

throwawayboise 5y ago

With modern hardware support for virtualization, is runtime overhead still a big deal (assuming your virtual environments are not emulating some other CPU?)

laumars 5y ago
Depends on the industry. For general purpose computing it’s generally not an issue but it does matter for some specific workflows. I tend to look at it the other way though: given containerisation is so easy these days, what are the compelling reasons to run virtual machines. Neither is a wrong answer though.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  VMs still provide better isolation and security, or is that no longer true?
  - laumars 5y ago
    They do but not by a significant margin these days. The kind of domains where this is an issue isn’t what you’re average engineer would be concerned with. Where VMs do help the average engineer is they have more secure defaults. It’s pretty easy to accidentally run containers insecurely on Linux (FreeBSD jails are a better story though)