Virtual Machines Vs. Containers

  The conversation usually goes something like this: Me: “I know that VMware is a technology you use quite a lot in the business. I’m currently working with a number of VMware Certified Professionals who are interested in new opportunities and wanted to understand how the business could utilise such professionals at this time?” Client: “We probably could do with another VMware specialist – but our plans are very much focused on moving to the cloud”   As a Recruiter, you need to embrace these trends and that’s why I’m building up my network of cloud professionals, while still servicing my existing clients who require the virtualisation professionals as it is still essential to IT infrastructures in small and large organisations. I’m not a techy but I was interested in doing some research to find out why organisations are starting to question their use of VMware & Hyper-V technology? It appears that the main factors in this trend are cost and the headache of legacy systems. The rise of “containers”, which are cheaper to use and born in the cloud so no installation problems, are impacting the dominance of virtualisation. An example of a container is Docker. Docker containers wrap a piece of software in a complete filesystem that contains everything needed to run: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries – anything that can be installed on a server. This guarantees that the software will always run the same, regardless of its environment. Containers and virtual machines have similar resource isolation and allocation benefits -- but a different architectural approach allows containers to be more portable and efficient. Containers include the application and all of its dependencies -- but share the kernel with other containers, running as isolated processes in user space on the host operating system. Docker containers are not tied to any specific infrastructure: they run on any computer, on any infrastructure and in any cloud. However VMware & Microsoft aren’t just standing still – they are embracing the change and recognise their market supremacy is under threat. For example, VMware has long been criticised for its proprietary approach to virtualisation but last year delivered their first open source container products. The first of these were Project Lightwave which focuses on identity and access management, the second was Project Photon which looks at managing containers and VM’s on a single platform. It’s going to be interesting to see how things develop in the battle for server virtualisation supremacy. But the fact VMware & Microsoft are taking a proactive approach to containers means they’re taking the threat very seriously.

- Phil

For more information on virtualisation and cloud technology market, contact Phil Lillicrapp