Thinking About Containers

Some thoughts on the modern datacenter

Sebastian Weigand: DevOps and Cloud PSE, VMware

A brief history of the datacenter

Datacenter 1.0Mainframes

Computation

Datacenter 2.0Many x86 servers

General-purpose computation

Datacenter 3.0Virtualization of hardware

Consolidation

Datacenter 3.5Cloud computing

IaaS and SDDC

Datacenter 4.0Containers and clusters

Schedulers

A brief history of business needs

Datacenter 1.0Technology is new

“How do we use these machines?”

“Can a machine do this task?”

“How can we integrate?”

Datacenter 2.0Technology is needed

“We need some computers.”

“We need an application.”

“We need a sysadmin.”

Datacenter 3.0Technology is becoming vital

“We need some VMs.”

“We need applications.”

“We need IT people.”

Datacenter 3.5Technology is dominant

“We have a lot of VMs.”

“We have a lot of applications.”

“We need cloud/devops people.”

Datacenter 4.0IT management is key

“We need to manage our VMs.”

“We need to manage our apps.”

“We still need devops people.”

Driving motivations

Setting the stage: Modern IT shops

Symptoms

Most are between DC 2.0 - 3.5

Many want “cloud computing”

Many don’t know what “cloud computing” is…

Many don’t have proper processes/procedures

Many are still “fire-fighting” everyday ops

Causes

Departmental silos

Heard it from Gartner / Forrester / etc…

Don’t fully understand how IT delivers value

Manual processes are easy to implement

Manual processes fail

Issues with current thinking

Bad thought

“I need a VM.”

“I need to change a VM.”

“I need a maintenance window.”

Good thought

“I need to run an application.”

“My application isn’t running well.”

“I need to update my application.”

How we solve this today

Problems

“I need to run an application.”

“My application isn’t running well.”

“I need to update my application.”

Solutions

Leverage CM, orchestration, and provisioning

Auto-scaling, preemptive provisioning

CM orchestration, “bakery” workflow

How we solve this with containers and schedulers

Problems

“I need to run an application.”

“My application isn’t running well.”

“I need to update my application.”

Solutions

Scheduler runs your applications

Scheduler scales your applications

Scheduler deploys new applications

CNA solves other problems, too

Additional benefits with CNA

Problem

“I need to configure my OS.”

“I need high-availability.”

“I need to scale my CM system.”

“I need to scale my multi-tiered app.”

CNA Solution

Use a minimal OS, like Photon, CoreOS, Atomic

Tell the scheduler, it will run it

Build artifacts, deploy with blue/green

Let the scheduler do the work

Wrap-up

Task-FocusedCNA is optimized forgetting things done

The farther away you are from achieving a business goal, the less efficient you are.

Infrastructure by itself is pointless

Containers are application-centric

Schedulers manage your containers.

CNA AdvantageSpend less time on lower-level things

The CNA methodology allows you to spend less time on traditional tasks of provisioning, configuring, and orchestrating…

And allows you to spend more time running and improving upon your applications.

Robert A. Heinlein

“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”