Containers: has their ship come in?

Containerisation on Windows

Linux dominates the world of operating system-level virtualisation. The concept of containers originates from Unix, and web applications, ideal for containerisation, are more likely to be run in Unix-like environments.

Despite this uphill battle against technical history, Microsoft has made some noise in recent times to kick-start containerisation in Windows.

Parallel’s Virtuozzo containers have supported Windows for “some time”, says Asia-Pacific sales engineer Alexei Anisimov, while conceding that “in the very beginning, [the Windows version] was almost like an experiment”.

“But it has now matured into a product that people use in production. It works with the same principle – one Windows server that can be sliced into multiple containers,” Anisimov told CRN. “I have to admit that it’s much less common. Linux containerisation is much more mature… Windows is still some way behind.”

In February 2015, US vendor DH2i launched its DxEnterprise product, spruiking it as providing both Windows containerisation and the management capabilities equivalent to Docker.

“With DxEnterprise, customers can containerise and make any new or existing Windows Server app service, file share, or Microsoft SQL Server instance portable and highly available,” says DH2i co-founder and CTO OJ Ngo. 

“It eliminates OS sprawl and reduces OS cost by 8-15 times, and provides near-zero application downtime as well as protection from OS, application and infrastructure faults.”