CaaS (Containers as a Service)

CaaS (Containers as a Service)

CaaS allows users to upload, organize, start, stop, scale and otherwise manage containers, applications and clusters.

What is CaaS (Containers as a Service)?

Containers as a service (CaaS) is a cloud service model that allows users to upload, organize, start, stop, scale and otherwise manage containers, applications and clusters. It enables these processes by using either a container-based virtualization, an application programming interface (API) or a web portal interface. CaaS helps users construct security-rich, scalable containerized applications through on-premises data centers or the cloud. Containers and clusters are used as a service with this model and are deployed in the cloud or in onsite data centers.

Why is CaaS important?

A model with broad application, CaaS helps developers streamline the process of constructing a fully scaled container and applications deployment. The model is a boon for IT departments, providing an enabled container deployment service that has governance control in a security-rich environment. The CaaS model helps enterprises simplify container management within their software-defined infrastructures.

Similar to other cloud computing services, users can choose and only pay for the CaaS resources they want. Some CaaS resource examples are compute instances, scheduling capabilities and load balancing.

In the spread of cloud computing services, CaaS is considered a subset of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and is found between IaaS and platform as a service (PaaS). CaaS includes containers as its basic resource, counter to the virtual machines (VMs) and bare metal hardware host systems commonly used for IaaS environments.

An essential quality of CaaS technology is orchestration that automates key IT functions. Google Kubernetes and Docker Swarm are two examples of CaaS orchestration platforms. IBM, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google are a few examples of public cloud CaaS providers.

Enterprise clients from all industries are seeing the benefits of CaaS and container technology. Using containers provides increased efficiency and gives these clients the ability to quickly deploy innovative solutions for application modernization and cloud native development with microservices. Containerization helps these clients release software faster and promotes portability between hybrid and multicloud environments, and reduce infrastructure, software licensing and operating costs.

Containers as a Service (CaaS) Benefits

Here are several of the client benefits for using containers:

Portability

When an application is created in a container, that completed app has everything it needs to run, including dependencies and configuration files. Having portability allows end users to reliably launch applications in different environments and public or private clouds. This portability also grants enterprises a large amount of flexibility, accelerating the development process and making it easier to switch to a different provider or cloud environment.

Highly efficient and cost cutting

Containers don’t need a separate OS and require less resources than a VM. A container often requires only a few dozen megabytes to run, allowing you to run several containers on a single server that would otherwise be used to run a VM. This efficiency coupled with their higher utilization level regarding underlying hardware helps reduce data center costs and bare metal costs.

Containers don’t interact and are somewhat isolated from other containers on the same servers, although they do share the same resources. If an application crashes for one container, other containers can continue to use it without experiencing any technical issues.

Security

The isolation that containers have from one another doubles as a risk-minimizing security feature. If one application is compromised, then its negative effects won’t spread to the other containers.

It’s also simpler to manage your host system. You can quickly launch updates and security patches because containers run application processes in isolation from the operating system and don’t need specific software to run applications. This benefit allows you to speedily launch updates and security patches.    

Speed

Since they don’t need an OS book, it takes seconds to create, start, replicate or destroy a container. This benefit enables a quick development process, expedites the time to market and operational speed, and makes releasing new versions or software simple, speedier and easier. This acceleration also helps with the customer experience by enabling enterprises and developers to speedily respond to bugs and incorporate new features as soon.

Scaling

Containers feature the capability for horizontal scaling, allowing end users to incorporate multiple identical containers within the same cluster to scale out. By using smart scaling and running only the containers that you need when you need them, you can dramatically reduce costs and boost your return on investment.

Streamlined development

Having an effective and efficient development pipeline is an advantage of container-based infrastructure. Containers allow applications to work and run as if built locally, so environmental inconsistencies are eliminated. Removing these inconsistencies helps streamline testing and debugging. This feature also doubles for updating applications, only requiring the developer to take a few moments and modify the configuration file, then generate new containers and delete the previous ones.