As developers, we hear a non-stop stream of technical-but-marketing messages for containers, orchestration tools, and cloud services. There is extensive overlap in these areas with regard to both means and ends, and it's time to clear the fog and get to the bottom of things. This talk gives a quick overview from a hardcore developer's perspective of the following topics:
* How can I use containers to develop better software?
* What are orchestration tools? Do I need to consider/use them?
* How do cloud/PaaS options compare? What are the tradeoffs?
* What is the difference?
* Why should I care? (Or should I?)
In this session, the presenter discusses several of these technologies, compares them, and deploys real applications to them LIVE to demonstrate subtle differences and tradeoffs each choice imposes upon developers, for better or worse.
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Clouds & Containers: Hit the High Points and Give it to Me Straight, What's the Difference & Why Should I Care?
1. Clouds & Containers
Hit the High Points and Give it to Me Straight,
What’s the Difference & Why Should I Care?
Mark Heckler
Principal Technologist/Developer Advocate
Pivotal Software, Inc.
www.thehecklers.org
mark@thehecklers.org
@MkHeck
@MkHeck #cloud #containers
5. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
The high points
• What is this container stuff of which you speak?
• How can I use containers to develop better software?
• What are orchestration tools? Do I need to consider/use them?
• How do cloud/PaaS options compare? What are the tradeoffs?
• What is the difference?
• Why should I care? (Or should I?)
6. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
The high points
• What is this container stuff of which you speak?
• How can I use containers to develop better software?
• What are orchestration tools? Do I need to consider/use them?
• How do cloud/PaaS options compare? What are the tradeoffs?
• What is the difference?
• Why should I care? (Or should I?)
From
a
Developer’s Perspective
15. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
How does this make software better?
• Portable
• Immutable
• Faster to build
• Lighter to distribute & run
• Availability of building blocks, e.g. prebuilt images
• Consistent across platforms, stages…everywhere
17. –Frederic Lardinois, TechCrunch
“Container orchestration remains a major pain point for
developers, even as multiple frameworks like Kubernetes and
Mesos now vie for this market.”
18. – http://kubernetes.io/
“Production-Grade Container Orchestration”
– http://kubernetes.io/docs/whatisk8s/
“Additionally, Kubernetes is not a mere ‘orchestration system’; it
eliminates the need for orchestration.”
Term soup
19. – http://kubernetes.io/
“Production-Grade Container Orchestration”
– http://kubernetes.io/docs/whatisk8s/
“Additionally, Kubernetes is not a mere ‘orchestration system’; it
eliminates the need for orchestration.”
Term soup
20. – http://kubernetes.io/
“Production-Grade Container Orchestration”
– http://kubernetes.io/docs/whatisk8s/
“Additionally, Kubernetes is not a mere ‘orchestration system’; it
eliminates the need for orchestration.”
Term soup
21. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
What IS orchestration?
“Back to basics” definition
Orchestration is a construct/toolset that:
• handles deployments
• allows for the management of multiple containers as one unit
• maintains targeted instance counts, e.g. scaling
25. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
How do cloud/PaaS options compare?
•
Orchestration capabilities (& usually much more) baked in (PaaS)
• Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform
• Each supports containers (in different ways)
• Unique approaches/solutions/configuration
26. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
Vendor-specific clouds
• Solid platforms
• Solid vendors
• Control?
• “Switching costs” (for devs)
• Public vs. on-premises decided for you (effectively public cloud only)
27. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
Cloud Foundry
• Foundation holds all IP (63 members)
• Open source
• Numerous providers: CenturyLink, GE, HP, Huawei, IBM, Pivotal, SAP, …
• Support for containers
• You choose/control underlying IaaS
• Public and on-premises options, one consistent API
28. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
Images vs. Buildpacks
• Some cloud providers (CF, Heroku, et al) offer conceptual alternative
• Distinction is deployable unit
• Intermediate objectives are the same
• End goal is the same
• Mechanics are different
• As humans, WE WANT IT ALL!
29. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
Images vs. Buildpacks
Buildpacks
• More flexible & mature capabilities within all CF variants
• Container OS can be patched by admin w/o rebuilding app
• App libs can be "freshened" with a simple app restage
• Can define env vars in manifest and do a one-step deploy
Docker images
• Can use Docker images from public repository
• Can control when container OS is patched (flip side: devs have responsibility for it)
• Don't expose Dockerfile-defined env vars to app exposed as ENTRYPOINT
30. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
Cloud & Containers TL;DR
• Lines increasingly blurred
• “Docker brand” containers specifically? Images vs. Engine?
• Differences for developers
• Differences for operations
33. @MkHeck #cloud #containers
Why should I care? Or should I?
• Consistency
• Portability
• Build integration with CI/CD pipelines
• Community
• Transferability of skills
• What do you think?