With the increase of necessity of
so much high end Servers for our deployments, a decade before we found a
solution called VIRTULIZATION. Simply it allows admins to run a server on top
of another server. With the high usage while having high productivity that
concept has aroused so much and today, we all get the experience of
Virtualization. While evolving the concept we had to face many challenges
especially on hardware limitations, software cost and shortage of expert technical
skills.
The architecture of virtualization
is totally based on hardware sharing and never incorporated software sharing.
In other words, we were unable to use HOST’s software inside a Virtual machine.
Also we were unable to share OS files / kernel information with VM.
Traditional Virtualization
To overcome mentioned limitations, Microsoft tried to
implement a virtualization concept that goes beyond hardware. The original
concept initiated few years back, and Microsoft merged their concept with
company named DOCKER and implemented
Container Service. It is a features that comes with Windows Server 2016 and
already implemented on Microsoft AZURE.
Azure Container Service aka ACS is introduced to create,
configure and manage cluster of virtual machines in a configured environment
using optimized performances. The container
is the application piece which works as a virtual machine.
Containerization (aka OS Virtualization)
** Container runs an
operating system, has a file system and can be accessed over a network.
With new concept, the HOST can handle many
containers same as virtual machines. But the containers can share resources, OS
files with the HOST as the diagram explained. With the sharing capability of
Container based virtualization the container can run as LIGHT weight machine
which enable efficiency. It will reduce loading time and will increase
operation time.
Important Facts
1)
Releasing
with Windows server 2016
2)
First
we need to create a “CONTAINER HOST” (Windows HOST or a LINUX HOST) before
start virtualization
3)
We
can create 2 types of Containers
a. Windows Server Containers (shares a kernel with the container host and all containers
running on the host)
b.
Hyper-V Containers (container in a highly optimized
virtual machine, valid only on-premise)
4)
Windows
Server Container Efficiency is greater than Hyper-V Container, because of OS
level virtualization
5)
Windows
Server Container Security is lesser than Hyper-V Container, because of resource
sharing
1)
Image is a Snapshot of a Container which
includes the current status of running virtualized environment.
2)
Sandbox is the storage use to write changes in
each container and can be committed to Image if wanted
1)
Container
OS Image provides the operating
system environment for Container, but this is Immutable.
2)
Container
Repository to Keep local data
including container specific installed software changes, file level changes and
other OS level changes.
3)
Microservices architecture will be integrated with
ACS,
a. Container can have many micro-services
(can call as SUB-SYSTEMS)
b. Efficient and manageable resource
allocation
4)
We
can enable the feature using command of
Install-WindowsFeature containers
WOW things
1)
“Docker
image” can be created and it can be deployed to all environments (IDENTICAL
environment of UAT, PRODUCTION)
2)
“Container
Orchestration” is capable of handling,
a. Tracking / managing containers
b. Can CLUSTER containers for easy
access
c. Scheduling of maintenance tasks
d. Constraint based deployments
3)
Docker template is available with visual studio
2015, we can create APPs directly to ACS
4)
Azure
Container Service (ACS) is now available
with on MARKETPLACE, we can create
CONTAINERS on Azure
5)
REST
API support to connect with third party tools
Portability among different platforms and
environments
Benefits
1)
With
the use of ACS, the OS will be virtualized. Hence the amount of resources will
be less and it will be a Financial
benefit
2)
All
the containers can use single base image and it will make all the environments
are identical
3)
Easy
to upgrade sever kernel as one unit
4)
Direct
integration of Visual Studio with Azure
