Containers vs Microservices – Introduction
Digital services have become essential to everyday life, from ordering food to streaming shows. As demand grows, traditional software structures are often too rigid to keep up with the need for flexibility and quick updates.
To overcome these limits, containers and microservices have become popular choices, especially for mobile and web applications. These approaches offer the scalability and speed needed to meet the fast-changing expectations of today’s users.
Containers and microservices are interconnected concepts that enable businesses to create and implement applications with swiftness, effectiveness, and adaptability. It is difficult to discuss one without mentioning the other, as they are often employed in conjunction. While microservices and containers are separate technologies that can be used independently, they frequently complement each other.
In this blog, we will explore both containers and microservices – the tech, highlight their main similarities and distinctions, and delve into how organizations can effectively utilize them in combination.
What are containers or Containerization?
A container is a self-contained package that includes an application and all its dependencies, ensuring consistent and easy deployment across different environments. It includes essential components like binaries, libraries, and configuration files needed to run the application, simplifying the deployment process by managing dependencies and minimizing compatibility issues.
Containers also provide process-level isolation, keeping each container separate from other containers and non-containerized processes on the server. This isolation enhances security and allows each container to maintain its unique configuration, independent of others.
Structurally, containers run on a host operating system and share its kernel, making them more lightweight and quicker to start than virtual machines, which require a hypervisor. This efficiency allows many containers—typically only a few megabytes in size—to run on a single server, compared to fewer, more resource-intensive virtual machines that occupy gigabytes of space
The following illustration represents the structure of a container:
Kubernetes from Google is the most popular free and open-source container management system, while Docker is the leading commercial solution. Linux has conventionally been the preferred operating system for containers, but Windows has caught up with Microsoft’s Hyper-V containers.
What are Microservices?
Microservices are independent software components that collectively fulfill the necessary functionalities to operate an application. Each microservice is responsible for a specific and distinct aspect of the application’s functionality.
Let’s understand this using example of a few businesses using microservices in their core application architecture:
- Amazon: Amazon’s website is built using a microservices architecture. Each service is responsible for a specific task, such as handling user authentication or processing orders.
- Netflix: Netflix uses microservices to deliver its streaming service. Each service is responsible for a specific task, such as managing user profiles or processing payments.
- Spotify: Spotify uses microservices to deliver its music streaming service. Each service is responsible for a specific task, such as managing user playlists or processing payments.
- Twitter: Twitter uses microservices to power its social media platform. Each service is responsible for a specific task, such as handling user authentication or processing tweets.
According to Gartner, a microservice is characterized as a service-oriented component within an application that possesses the following attributes:
- Precisely defined scope
- Strong encapsulation
- Loose coupling
- Independent deployment
- Independent scalability
As per AWS, the microservice architecture entails constructing an application with discrete components, where each component functions as a service running its own application process. These services interact through well-defined interfaces utilizing lightweight APIs.
Consider an example of an e-commerce web application illustrated below. Employing a microservice architecture approach would involve dividing the application into distinct components, such as:
- Order management service
- Product Catalog service
- Payment service
Each service would maintain its own database and communicate with other services through an API gateway. The individual development and management of each service would allow for independent scalability and customization to meet specific needs and circumstances without disrupting the overall functionality of the application.
The focus of adopting microservices has primarily been on refactoring existing monolithic applications, as opposed to constructing new applications from the ground up. While microservices offer agility and scalability advantages, they also necessitate the implementation of suitable supporting infrastructure, especially considering the challenges associated with managing numerous microservices across different teams.
To address these complexities approaches like DevOps (Development and Operations) and CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment) are better suited. These methodologies ensure efficient and effective management of microservices throughout the entire lifecycle, starting from the design phase and extending through the development and deployment stages.
Microservices vs. Containers: The Comparison
“A container is an advantageous technology for resource allocation and sharing, generating enthusiasm among DevOps professionals. On the contrary, a microservice is a software design pattern that sparks excitement among developers.”
To put it concisely:
- Microservices focus on the software design aspect.
- Containers concentrate on packaging software for deployment.
Therefore, we have the flexibility to decide whether we want to use a container to host a microservice. However, to fully leverage the advantages of both, it is highly beneficial to run microservices inside containers.
Running an entire application on a single virtual machine (VM) creates a single point of failure, even with a microservices architecture. When multiple microservices share the same VM, they rely on the same infrastructure and resources. This means that if one microservice encounters an issue, it can impact the entire VM, potentially affecting all microservices on it. Additionally, a single VM has limited scalability, and dependency conflicts between microservices can arise. Managing multiple microservices on one VM is also complex, as updates or configuration changes may require downtime for the entire machine.
However, distributing the application across multiple containers using microservices maximizes the combined value by offering-
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Resilience: By leveraging microservices within containers, the application becomes more resilient as failures in one microservice or container do not disrupt the entire system.- Scalability: Combining microservices and containers allows for seamless scalability, enabling individual services to scale independently to meet varying demands.
- Targeted Improvements: Microservices in containers enable focused improvements, allowing for enhancements to specific services without requiring changes to the entire application architecture.
By deploying microservices in separate containers, each service can run independently, isolated from others, and utilize dedicated resources. This provides better fault tolerance, scalability, and flexibility, reducing the risk of a single point of failure and enabling efficient management of the microservices ecosystem.
This approach introduces flexibility, allowing developers to write applications in their preferred programming language since containers facilitate deployment across various environments. Additionally, containers contribute to efficiency by utilizing fewer resources compared to VMs.
Furthermore, the adoption of microservices and containers brings added security benefits. Isolation and a broader attack surface reduce the impact of a security breach, such as a hacking attack, on a single microservice or container, thereby limiting the overall damage.
Limitations with Microservices and Containers
The challenges of using containers and microservices mainly arise from the complexities of managing large-scale distributed deployments. These complexities include the tasks of deploying, monitoring, and maintaining containers and microservices across diverse environments. To address these issues, specialized tools are essential for orchestration and ensuring consistent, reliable deployment.
Additional challenges include:
- Complexity arising from managing microservices written in diverse programming languages.
- Costs incurred from network resource usage due to remote calls across multiple services.
- The challenges associated with investigating root causes or auditing systems arise when managing log information across distributed services, necessitating the utilization of log aggregators.
To address these challenges, careful consideration, appropriate tooling, and expertise in managing containerized microservice architectures are crucial.
What does the future hold for Containers and Microservices?
The future of containers and microservices appears promising, with ongoing advancements and increased adoption in the software development and deployment landscape. Here are some key trends and possibilities for their future:
- Continued Growth: The popularity and adoption of containers and microservices are expected to grow as more organizations recognize the benefits they offer in terms of scalability, flexibility, and agility in software development and deployment.
- Improved Tooling and Infrastructure: The ecosystem around containers and microservices will continue to evolve, providing enhanced tooling, management platforms, and infrastructure support. This includes the development of container orchestration systems like Kubernetes and improved container runtime environments.
- Integration with Cloud-native Technologies: Containers and microservices align well with cloud-native technologies, such as serverless computing and edge computing. The integration of these technologies can enable even more efficient and scalable application development and deployment.
- Increased Standardization and Interoperability: Efforts to establish standards and improve interoperability between containerization platforms and microservice frameworks will likely gain momentum. This will simplify the adoption and integration of containers and microservices across different environments and providers.
- Security and Governance Enhancements: As the adoption of containers and microservices increases, so does the focus on enhancing security and governance practices around them. This includes advancements in container security measures, authentication, access controls, and compliance frameworks.
- Fusion with Emerging Technologies: Containers and microservices will likely integrate with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain. This fusion can unlock new possibilities for building intelligent, decentralized, and autonomous applications.
Conclusion
In summary, containers provide an effective balance of security, performance, and ease of management for deploying microservices. While certain cases—like the need for strict isolation or varied OS environments—may favor deploying microservices without containers, containers remain a flexible choice. Not only can they host microservices, but they’re also suitable for monolithic applications. Ultimately, using containers for microservice deployment empowers enterprises with agility, scalability, and simplified application management.”
Contact us or schedule a free consultation with our team of experts at AnAr Solutions to find out the potential benefits for your business.
