Managed Container Platform: Top 3 Reasons why you should go it

Managed Container Platform provides advantages to any system inside any company. Take a look at the three critical ones.

Managed Container Platform is disrupting everything. We’re living in a time where development and the IT landscape are changing, new paradigms like microservices and containers seem to be out there for the last few years, and if we trust the reality that the blog posts and the articles show today, we’re all of the users already using them all the time.

Did you see any blog posts about how to develop a J2EE application running on your Tomcat server on-prem? Probably not. The most similar article should probably be how to containerize your tomcat-based application.

But do you know what? Most companies still are working that way. So even if all companies have a new digital approach in some departments, they also have other ones being more traditional.

So, that seems that we need to find a different way to translate the main advantages of a container-based platform to a kind of speech they can see and realize the tangible benefits they can get from there and have the “Hey, this can work for me!” kind of spirit.

1. You will get all components isolated and updated more quickly

That’s one of the great things about container-based platforms compared with previous approaches like application server-based platforms. When you have an application server cluster, you still have one cluster with several applications. So you usually do some isolation, keep related applications, provide independent infrastructure for the critical ones, and so on.

But even with that, at some level, the application continues to be coupled, so some issues with some applications could bring down another one that was not expected for business reasons.

With a container-based platform, you’re getting each application in its bubble, so any issue or error will affect that application and nothing more. Platform stability is a priority for all companies and all departments inside them. Just ask yourself: Do you want to end with those “domino’s chains” of failure? How much will your operations improve? How much will your happiness increase?

Additionally, based on the container approach, you will get smaller components. Each of them will do a single task providing a single capability to your business, which means that it will be much easier to update, test, and deploy in production. So that, in the end will generate more deployments into the production environment and reduce the time to market for your business capabilities.

You will be able to deploy faster and have more stable operations simultaneously.

2.- You will optimize the use of your infrastructure

Costs, everything is about costs. There are no single conversations with customers who are not trying to pay less for their infrastructure. So, let’s face it. We should be able to run operations in an optimized way. So, if our infrastructure cost is going higher, that needs to mean that our business increases.

Container-based platforms will allow optimizing infrastructure in two different ways. First, if using two main concepts: Elasticity and Infrastructure Sharing.

Elasticity is related because I’m only going to have the infrastructure I need to support the load I have at this moment. So, if the load increases, my infrastructure will increase to handle it, but after that moment goes away, it will go back to what it needs now after that peak happened.

Infrastructure sharing is about using each server’s part that is free to deploy other applications. Imagine a traditional approach where I have two servers for my set of applications. Probably I don’t have 100% usage of those servers because I need to have some spare computer to be able to act when the load increases. I probably have 60–70% percent. That means 30% free. If we have different departments with different systems, and each has its infrastructure 30% free, how much of our infrastructure are we just throwing away? How many dollars/euros/pounds are you just throwing off the window?

Container-based platforms don’t need specific tools or software installed on the platform to run a different kind of application. It is not required because everything resides inside the container, so I can use any free space to deploy other applications doing a more efficient usage of those.

3.- You will not need infrastructure for administration

Each system that is big enough has some resources dedicated to being able to manage it. However, even most of the recommended architectures recommend placing those components isolated from your runtime components to avoid any issue regarding administrator or maintenance that can affect your runtime workloads, which means specific infrastructure that you’re using for something that isn’t helping your business. Of course, you can explain to any business user that you need a machine to run that provides the capabilities required. But it is more complex than using additional infrastructure (and generating cost) to place other components that are not helping the business.

So, managed container platforms take that problem away because you’re going to provide the infrastructure you need to run your workloads, and you’re going to be given for free or such low fee the administration capabilities. And addition to that, you don’t even need to worry that administration features are always available and working fine because this is leverage to the provider itself.

Wrap up and next steps

As you can see, we describe very tangible benefits that are not industry-based or development focus. Of course, we can have so many more to add to this list, but these are the critical ones that affect any company in any industry worldwide. So, please, take your time to think about how these capabilities can help to improve your business. But not only that, take your time to quantify how that will enhance your business. How much can you save? How much can you get from this approach?

And when you have in front of you a solid business case based on this approach, you will get all the support and courage you need to move forward during that route!! So I wish you a peaceful transition!