Rancher Labs 2017 Predictions: Rapid Adoption and Innovation to Come

2017 Predictions: Rapid Adoption and Innovation to Come

Rapid adoption of container orchestration frameworks

As more companies use containers in production, adoption of orchestration frameworks like Kubernetes, Mesos, Cattle and Docker Swarm will increase as well. These projects have evolved quickly in terms of stability, community and partner ecosystem, and will act as necessary and enabling technologies for enterprises using containers more widely in production.

Greater innovation in container infrastructure services

Free eBook: Comparing Kubernetes, Mesos, and Docker Swarm Though there’s a strong set of container storage and networking solutions on the market today, more products will emerge to support the growth and scale of production container workloads, particularly as specifications like Container Network Interface (used by Kubernetes) continue to mature. Companies like StorageOS, Portworx and Quobyte will see more adoption.

Infrastructure clusters as code emerges

To reinforce the ability to write once and run anywhere, orchestration clusters will be increasingly templated and instantiated from blueprints, in the same way containerized apps are deployed as Docker Compose files. Users will define exactly the Kubernetes, Swarm or Mesos deployment configuration they need, along with any infrastructure services, and then deploy it on whatever cloud or virtualization infrastructure they choose. Users have been asking for this function for over a year, and the latest version of Rancher takes steps towards this vision by enabling users to deliver complete, container-ready environmets as modular, customizable templates.

Docker accelerates ARM server adoption

We are likely still a ways from the real \“year of the ARM server,\” but containers will definitely help accelerate adoption of ARM in the datacenter. Containers run the same on ARM servers as they do on Intel servers, but with the potential to dramatically reduce costs. Hosting companies like Packet are now offering ARM servers on demand in hourly increments; containers and thin Linux distributions like RancherOS make it possible to take advantage of these hosting solutions, in turn making ARM servers an interesting option for certain workloads. Note: This blog first appeared on VMblog on December 13, 2016