Why use containers?

Why use containers?

Containers offer a logical packaging mechanism in which applications can be abstracted from the environment in which they actually run. This decoupling allows container-based applications to be deployed easily and consistently, regardless of whether the target environment is a private data center, the public cloud, or even a developer’s personal laptop. This gives developers the ability to create predictable environments that are isolated from rest of the applications and can be run anywhere.

From an operations standpoint, apart from portability containers also give more granular control over resources giving your infrastructure improved efficiency which can result in better utilization of your compute resources.

Google Trends for Docker

Due to these benefits, containers (& Docker) have seen widespread adoption. Companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix and Salesforce leverage containers to make large engineering teams more productive and to improve utilization of compute resources. In fact, Google credited containers for eliminating the need for an entire data center.