Managed Container Hosting

Containers are a powerful way to develop and deploy applications. HIPAA Vault makes container deployment and orchestration as simple as possible with an emphasis on managed security services. Use any open source tool sets you prefer including – Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm, or DC/OS. Available in both Managed HIPAA Compliant Hosting or Managed Secure Hosting.

Using containers has many advantages including:
  • Agile Creation and Deployment of Applications
  • Reliable and Frequent build of images with easy roll back
  • Portability to various cloud environment and OS types
  • Isolation of Resources
  • Optimal Utilization of Resources

Due to their agility and mobility, containers are used extensively. Kubernetes (or “K8S”) provides the means to move from a host-centric world to a container-centric one, with it’s many advantages, as described below.

  • Rolling Updates
  • Balancing Loads
  • Replication of Applications

Containers

Containers are an innovation that takes advantage of the advancements in virtualization. Most IT professionals are familiar with virtualization at the hardware level where many virtual machines can be created on a single physical server or host machine. Similarly, containers take a single operating system (OS) and create multiple virtual machines that share the same OS.

Sharing the same operating system has distinct advantage of allowing developers to deploy multiple versions of the same application on the same operating system. For example, one container may serve an application that is optimized for iPhone and another container may be optimized for serving content to Android phones.

Whereas hardware virtualization is great for creating multiple virtual machines, containers excel in creating multiple versions of a single application. The advantage for developers are numerous and include:

Life cycle management of containers

Containers allow for higher efficiency in managing an application cradle to grave because containers are built to house applications where virtual machines are designed to host an operating system.

Density

Far more containers can be added on a single operating system instance because containers are smaller than a virtual machine.

Speed

Because containers are smaller than virtual machines, they can be deployed in seconds versus the minutes it takes to deploy virtual machines.

Isolation

Containers can be isolated for security reasons where the applications are containerized and segregated; however, virtual machines do offer an advantage here where a higher level of isolation can be achieved.

Scaling

Both virtual machines and containers can scale; however, containers have the distinct advantage of allowing for many more containers to be deployed over the same resources of CPU and RAM.

Developer Productivity

Developers can now work on various versions of the same application on the same machine since containers segrate, not only the application, but also the libraries and dependencies that support the application

Portability

Platform independence

Kubernetes (K8S)

Kubernetes (K8S) is a container management system that handles clusters of containers. First a quick overview of containers and their benefits. On the left is the legacy way of doing things where each server has a single application installed. New apps would require spinning up a new server, essentially one major app per server. On the right is the container method of launching apps where the same server can host various apps, each containerized and isolated from each other; this more flexible method of installing apps is referred to as OS-level virtualization.

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