Windows Server Modern Application Platform Features-3: Containers

Microsoft has made a focused shift to ensuring that customers today, whether they is in the public or private cloud, which has A solid foundation for their application portfolio. There is the new technologies introduced in Microsoft Windows server: Nano server and containers. With these new technologies, you can take advantage of a highly optimized, scalable, and secure experience for application Platform.

Containers

A container in it simplest form is exactly that-a container. It is a isolated environment in which can run a application without fear of changes due to applications or Configura tion. Containers share key components (kernel, system drivers, and so on) that can reduce startup time and provide greater Densi Ty than you can achieve with a VM.

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As the illustration demonstrates, a host OS can host many containers and allow them to being completely isolated while Sharin G key components of the OS, such as the kernel.

The interesting thing about containers is the application itself. The application might has various dependencies that it requires to run. These dependencies exist only within the container itself. This means, something bad, happens to application A, and the binaries it depends on have no impact on application B and the binaries on which it depends. For example, with most environments, if you delete the registry from application A, the consequences is disastrous for both Application A and Application B. However, with containers, application A and application B is each self-contained, and the change to the registry for APPL Ication A does not affect application B.

Because all binaries and dependencies be hosted within the container, the application running in the container is complet Ely Portable. Essentially, this means so can deploy a container to any host running the container Manager software, and it'll st Art and run without any modification. For example, a developer can begin developing he application and deploy it into a hyper-V Container using Windows Anni Versary Edition. When he was ready for roll it out in production, it can be run on Windows Server, including Nano Server, in a public, p Rivate, or hybrid cloud.

Containers is built on layers. The first layer is the base layer. This was the OS image on which all other layers would be built. This image is a stored in a image repository so, you can reference it when necessary. The next layer (and sometimes the final layer) is the application framework layer, can be shared between all of your A Pplications. For example, if your base layer are Windows Server Core, your application framework layer could be. NET Framework and Inter NET Information Services (IIS). The second layer can also be stored as a image, which, when called, also describes it dependency on the base layer of Wi Ndows Server Core. Finally, the application layer is where the application itself are stored, with references to the application framework lay Er and, in turn, to the base layer.

The base layer and the application layer can be referenced for any and all other application

Container you create. Each layer was considered read-only except the top layer of the "image" you are deploying. For example, if you deploy a container that depends only on the Windows Server Core image, this Windows Server Core layer is the top layer of the container and a sandbox are put in place to store all the writes and changes made during runtime. You can then store the changes made as another image for later reuse. The same applies if you deploy the application framework layer image; This layer would has its own sandboxes, and if you deploy your application to it, you can then save the sandbox as a Reusab Le image.

Basically, when you deploy a container to a host, the host determines whether it has the base layer. If not, it pulls the base layer from an image repository. Next, it repeats the process for the application framework layer and then creates the application container so you were Originally trying to deploy. If want to create another container with the same dependencies, you simply issue a command to create the new APPL Ication container, and it is provisioned almost immediately because all of the dependencies was already in place. If you had an application container, depends on a different application framework layer as well as on the original Wi Ndows Server Core Base layer, you can simply pulling the different application framework layer from an image store and start The new application container.

For details, please ref the Microsoft free book: introducing Windows Server at Http://aka.ms/mspre Ssfree or email me at [email protected]

Windows Server Modern Application Platform Features-3: Containers