Evolution of Containers: Past, Present, and Future

Author: Abhay Reddy

Containers are units of software that contains the code and all dependencies so that an application can run across platforms such as desktops, data centers, and cloud. It provides an abstraction at the application layer. Each container runs as an isolated process while sharing the same OS kernel. Container adoption has grown rapidly, and much faster than expected.

Image: Containers Statistics. Source [1], [2], [3], [4]

Below is a brief history of containers, and how it is continuing to evolve

Image: Evolution of Containers. Past, Present, and Future

1970 saw the beginning of process isolation with the Introduction of Unix v7. It allowed for the segregation of file access for each process.

2004: Solaris Containers was released. It combined system resource controls and boundary separation.

2005: Open Vz was released. It provided operating system-level virtualization technology for Linux.

2016: Google launched Process Containers. It was designed for limiting, accounting, and isolating resource usage.

2008: LXC (LinuX Containers) was the first and most complete implementation of Linux container manager.

2013: Docker engine was first released. Container use has since exploded in popularity.

2014: Kubernetes was announced by Google in 2014. It is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

2016: Kubernetes was adopted by Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2016. The first major security vulnerability CVE-2016–5195 was also revealed.

2017: All major players such as Google, Docker, Red Hat, Microsoft, AWS, and VMware had adopted/ supported Kubernetes.

Present:

• Kubernetes is now the gold standard. There has been an explosion of companies catering to the management of containers, CI/CD, and DevSecOps.
• Growth of hybrid and multi-cloud environments

Future:

• Hyper abstraction
• Adoption of Serverless technologies
• Focus on Security
• Containers at the intelligent edge, and for mission-critical applications
• Increase in complexity
• Skill shortage

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