Best Container Management Services & Software

For organizations that are selecting a container management solution, it’s important to understand a given solution in combination with the vendor that provides that solution. This is because each container management provider offers a variety of additional features and tools that play a key role in determining the nature of their container management solution.

However, clearly the process of choosing a container management solution must revolve around the specific features of a given solution. These may include:

• Automated rollouts and rollbacks

• System health monitoring

• Scaling and flexibility

• Management capabilities

• The ability to integrate containers with existing hardware and software. Although containers are agnostic – they work across many different environments – there are limitations. For example, Windows and Linux containers are not interoperable.

• A platform that handles containers and microservices.

Numerous companies offer solutions and platforms in the container management space. Below are listed the top eight top vendors/solutions. All of these products and platforms have been widely deployed in the enterprise. We’ve selected these vendors based on the reputations of their products, the breadth and depth of the features they deliver, analyst reviews, customer testimonials and other independent research.

Jump ahead:

• AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS)
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Diamanti D10
• Docker
• Google GKE
• Kubernetes
• Hyper-V Containers
• OpenShift

AWS Elastic Container Service

Amazon ECS supports Docker containers and its own proprietary Fargate technology. ECS is a highly scalable platform allows users to install and operate their own container orchestration software, manage and scale a cluster of virtual machines, or schedule containers on those virtual machines.

This includes long-running applications, microservices, batch jobs and machine learning applications. The AWS container offering integrates with numerous other AWS services, including elastic Load Balancing, Amazon VPC, AWS IAM, Amazon ECR, AWS Batch, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudFormation, AWS CodeStar, and AWS CloudTrail. AWS also offers Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS).

Amazon Web Services is the is the clear leader in market share for cloud infrastructure. It holds 41.5 percent of application workloads in the public cloud. This makes it a focal point for organizations, including any company considering containers.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) provides a powerful managed tool for using and orchestrating containers, and dynamically scaling infrastructure and applications. AKS provisions clusters using the Azure portal and Azure CLI, or with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Azure Resources Manager and Terraform.

AKS offers several key features: control plane telemetry, log aggregation, and container health visibility as part of the Azure portal. It also features auto upgrades, patching and self-healing capabilities.

With nearly 30 percent of market share based on application workloads, Azure is also at the center of enterprise cloud initiatives. What’s more, its market share is growing. The service aims to simplify DevOps by introducing highly automated processes, which compliments container management.

Diamanti D10

Diamanti’s D10 bare-metal container platform offers a unified solution that hosts and runs containerized applications at scale. It plugs into existing VLAN and DNS infrastructure.

The “hyper-converged” container platform tilts toward high performance applications by integrating networking and storage functions. This guarantees real-time service levels and high utilization levels. The appliance ships with pre-integrated container software, including Docker and Kubernetes. It provides dashboards and reporting functions via a browser, CLI or REST API, and Diamanti OS.

Originally DataWise Systems, the company changed its name in 2016.

Docker

Docker introduced the concept of containers and containerization in 2013. The widely used open source platform has become a standard, and the technology is now available for both Windows and Linux.

One of the appealing features of Docker is that it integrates with the Linux kernel and thus operates in all versions of Linux. Docker Enterprise Edition (DEE), the commercial product from Docker, Inc. allows enterprises to federate applications deployed on-premises, in cloud environments and managed Kubernetes.

This includes cloud platforms such as AWS Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). As a result, Docker supports extended supply chains. Docker now offers several products that revolve around containerization.

Google GKE

The Kubernetes Engine provides a high level of flexibility for organization using containers and microservices. It’s possible to run the containers on-premises, in the Google cloud and all other environments that support Kubernetes. Google boasts the ability to deploy a cluster in seconds and update production code seamlessly. The platform supports an array of features, including identity and access management, auto-scaling, auto-upgrading, stateful application support, docker image support, workload portability, and various security and compliance features.

This management and orchestration system for Docker runs in the Google public cloud, which handles about 3 percent of application workloads worldwide. It benefits from the breadth and depth of the Google Cloud Platform.

Kubernetes

The open-source container orchestration platform, developed by Google in 2015 and now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, has become a powerful tool for deploying, automating, scaling and managing components.

Kubernetes is built on a model that defines building blocks and uses them to manage activities related to software development. It has been incorporated into numerous cloud platforms and it works with various container tools, including Docker.

The Kubernetes API allows it to handle basic scheduling units called pods. The containers reside in a pod, which connects to a volume, such as a local disk directory or a network disk. This simplifies container management and creates services, which are essentially groups of pods that work together.

Hyper-V Containers

This platform handles nested virtualization within Hyper-V. It allows users to tap Docker as well as its own Windows PowerShell cmdlets using a command-line interface. Hyper-V is intended to be a lighter weight configuration platform that pushes or pulls containers from the Docker Hub or a local repository.

Hyper-V Containers each contain a copy of the Windows kernel and have memory assigned directly to them. This creates strong isolation, which is valuable for delivering comparable isolation found in Virtual Machines. This means they can run “non-trusted” and multi-tenant applications on the same host.

Microsoft introduced Hyper-V Containers with Windows Server 2016; it also introduced Windows Server Containers at that time.

OpenShift

The OpenShift Container Platform, offered by Red Hat, is an on-premises platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) product. It relies on Docker containers that are orchestrated by Kubernetes, running on Red Hat’s Linux operating system.

The environment handles both cloud-native and legacy applications through an on-demand and pluggable architecture. It includes strong built-in automation and a focus on unified operations. The environment has a reputation for being fast, easy to manage and secure.

The OpenShift platform benefits from Red Hat’s extensive knowledge of enterprise IT. (Red Hat was recently acquired by IBM.)

Container Management Solutions at a Glance: