The next generation of application platforms is evolving rapidly, writes Wikibon Senior Analyst Stuart Miniman, and containers are at its core. Containers offer major advantages for application development and deployment because of their speed, simplicity and flexibility. They can accelerate the transition to modern application frameworks and provide application portability for hybrid clouds.

However, building a full container-based application infrastructure requires assembly. Miniman goes into detail on more than a dozen elements of the container stack (see image above), including image management, container management and service discovery. At the moment, no vendor covers the full gamut of services, so it’s up to users to piece them together.

Containers are best suited for modern or next-generation applications, Miniman writes. They free applications from lock-in to a particular hardware platform, giving them the portability companies need for hybrid cloud environments. They are ideal for use with microservices, which are the next generation approach to scale-out application development. Microservices provide the flexibility to alter specific application features rapidly to meet changing business needs.

The ecosystem of companies building elements of the container architecture is rapidly evolving. Today these companies typically provide one or more tools that cover parts of the stack, but they are evolving toward developing complete stacks.

Early adaptors can realize advantages from creating their own production environments from these tools to support next generation applications. But building that environment today requires skills and knowledge of the new technologies required to support large numbers of containers.

Miniman discusses the specific layers in the stack in detail and recommends that, for companies interested in modern application development, now is the time to explore container architectures and develop the expertise needed to build and manage a stack to support containers.

Miniman’s full report is available on Wikibon Premium.

© 2015 Wikibon. Used with permission.