For many years, Platform as a Service (PaaS) has been the model of choice over Containerization as a Service for developers in the world of cloud computing. But container services such as CaaS (Containerization as a Service) are starting to gain more currency in the world of coding. While the two have coexisted for some time, experts are starting to see a shift toward containerization as a service as the primary means of managing an application’s requirements. In fact, Gartner estimates that 70% of PaaS users will end up choosing a containerization service to create apps, during the development process. Read on to learn more about why this change is taking place, and what it means for your company and its apps.

Why PaaS?

Before PaaS, development teams needed to build infrastructure (and maintain it) for every app they developed. For complicated apps, this was tedious work: You had to write scripts or manually configure servers, storage, security and infrastructure.

PaaS provided a platform that apps would run within. Rather than the individual application teams providing all of this standard plumbing, it was built into the platform, which the app then interfaced with. This was an elegant solution, and offered developers unprecedented agility.

PaaS and Containers

Containers made PaaS possible. Containers are operating system constructs that limit and manage resources for an application. With containers, you could now “pack” all the code needed into the container, which the PaaS then builds on to run and manage the application.

It’s important to remember that in first-generation PaaS solutions, these containers were typically proprietary, not open-source. And while PaaS made coding apps swifter and more elegant, it did this by standardizing certain programming decisions, including the language or tools used, and the abstraction of infrastructure. Developers would follow a set of rules to allow the PaaS to take their software artifacts and run it in the PaaS solution’s containers.

So while PaaS drove productivity, it also limited developers’ choices. But because PaaS was such an efficient solution, and one which most enterprises liked (because it allowed them a certain amount of control), it remained the gold standard in app development for a long time. Enter Containerization!

Containerization Software

Breaking free of PaaS became more viable with the advent of container software like Docker. These containerization programs allowed any developer to easily describe their app components and build a container image. A container image built in this manner has everything it needs to run smoothly on any system, without any middleware or virtualization layer. Hence, it’s also typically very efficient – far more so than a virtual machine.

With Docker and comparable programs, apps are independent from platforms. And they come with everything they need, so they should run identically across different systems. Plus, many of these containers are open source – unlike the containers used in most first-generation PaaS solutions.

The Future of PaaS, The Future of Containerization as a Service

With container software and containerization as a service, developers have created a new solution to the problem that caused them to create PaaS in the first place. Container software promises to free developers from many of the strictures that were placed on them with PaaS. For instance, when using a container management program to deploy your app, you can code in any language and use any component you like, whereas PaaS solutions typically limited you to a few languages and components.

However, containers still need to be managed. This is where container management software comes in. By providing containerization as a service for deploying, monitoring, and managing containers, container management software can do everything that a PaaS can do without the constraints of a fixed platform.

It’s likely that some enterprises will try to hold on to PaaS, at least for a while. PaaS is familiar, by this point. And because the platform in a PaaS solution aids in governance (and containers can vary based on their contents), it’s likely that some organizations will stay with PaaS for a set of applications.

But containerization as a service makes delivering portable apps a simple and versatile process. Many teams, especially in the DevOps world, are latching onto containerization as a service as their new preferred means of coding, deploying, and managing apps. Over time, you’ll likely see many more companies abandoning PaaS in favor of elegant, lightweight, versatile containerization-based solutions.

Nirmata Can Help with Containerization as a Service!

As we explain in another blog post on the topic of containerization as a service, “Nirmata provides a comprehensive container management platform to deploy, operate, and secure Kubernetes applications and clusters at Enterprise scale. In addition to all the services mentioned, Nirmata also provides various other helpful functionalities like governance, additional security, and an abstraction that enables engineers to manage all their applications without detailed knowledge about how it works behind the scenes.”

Nirmata offers a unified user interface that is intuitive and well-designed, which is essential when accessing a complex application. Nirmata has paid special attention to the UX and has not compromised user experience in order to build an API-rich application. The interface leverages APIs to enable all the product’s capabilities – making it a valuable platform indeed.

If you are looking for Apps containerization that avoids DevOps headaches, then Nirmata’s containerization as a service is the best bet. To learn even more, watch our demo on containers via Kubernetes here. You can also contact Nirmata below with any questions you may have or to discuss our Kubernetes containerization as a service solution offerings.

Please visit this case study page and learn how automated containerization as a service can save up to 60% on AWS.

InfoWorld Covers Kubernetes and Containerization as a Service!

Read and learn about Kubernetes containerization as a service from Nirmata on this page as powered by Kyverno.

Listen to a podcast recorded at CubeCon regarding containerization as a service for Kubernetes for the Enterprise – with GM Financial & Nirmata.

Ready to engage with Nirmata? We’d love to be of assistance. Sign-up for a free trial today. You can also contact Nirmata with questions on containerization as a service or how Nirmata helps DevSecOps and platform engineering teams past Day 2 Kubernetes hassles.

Image Source: “Containers Building” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by Tristan Taussac