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Container engines are platforms that enable you to run multiple containers on the same operating system (OS) kernel. They take in user requests, command lines, and images and use them to manage the container in question.
Container engines provide an easy way to manage container environments and come from a variety of providers, both open-source and proprietary.
See below to learn all about the global container engine market:
Container Engine Market
The global container services market was valued at an estimated $1.6 billion in 2020. It’s projected to follow a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.7% over the analysis period from 2020 to 2027, reaching $11.2 billion by the end of it.
The container management and orchestration segment of the market is set for a CAGR of 31% and reach $3.4 billion by 2027. The security segment is set to maintain a revised CAGR of 34.4% over the analysis period.
Regionally, the global container engine market is segmented as follows:
- The U.S. market was estimated at $489 million in 2020, with a 30.5% share
- The Chinese market is forecast for a CAGR of 30.8% over the analysis period, reaching $1.9 billion by 2027
- Japan and Canada are forecast to grow at a CAGR of 28.2% and 27.3% over the forecast period
- Within Europe, Germany is projected to maintain one of the highest CAGRs at 22.4%
- The Asia-Pacific segment, led by Australia, India, and South Korea, is forecast to reach a value of $1.3 billion by 2027
By industry, the application container services are used by several industries, such as:
- Banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI)
- Retail and consumer goods
- Health care and life sciences
- Manufacturing
- Media and entertainment
- IT and telecommunications
- Transportation and logistics
The Future of Technical Businesses and Organizations is Reliant on Application Containers
Gartner predicts that around 75% of organizations will be using application containers in some form by the year 2024.
While the technology to create containers has been available for years, companies’ needs for specialized software to run and manage containers at a scale. There are numerous open-source and free engines, such as Docker and Kubernetes, but many organizations still opt to get containers as ready-to-use services, created, deployed, and managed by a third party.
“In many organizations, the number of containerized applications is growing rapidly. While containers are fairly easy to deploy and manage manually in small numbers, for a large set, management without automation is virtually impossible,” says Mariano Lopez in a post at Hexacta.
“In an environment that emulates production, it is possible to set up a test environment and then, once approved, deploy the final code in production.”
Container Engine Features
Container engines become essential when the number and complexity of application containers in a single organization grows. Engines are ready-to-use software or managed services for running and managing application containers.
When based in the cloud, container engines can help successfully plan Kubernetes container strategies and apply them to applications through automation and scalable operations.
Depending on the software or managed service, container engines have a set of capabilities that streamline application container creation, deployment, and long-term management, such as:
Creating Kubernetes Clusters
Container engines simplify the creation of the collection of nodes that make up and run a containerized application. They enable scalability and continuous availability of container klusters.
Built-in Cluster Security
The flat network model of Kubernetes clusters facilitates communication between nodes, but a single compromised node can infiltrate the rest of the cluster. Container engines enable you to isolate the cluster computing processes, guard the infrastructure from outside access, and adhere to regulatory compliance.
Container Logging and Monitoring
Container engines are able to collect logging data and metrics for container monitoring and performance measuring. The data includes the commands sent and received through the container as well as any activity to occur within a container.
Smart Scheduling and Automation
Container engines enable you to run and deploy containers on the chosen hosts. The resources are shifted and redistributed depending on availability and traffic flow into each container.
Task Definition and Management
Container engines can be used to define individual tasks and specify the containers required for the task. Task management and definition in container engines are scalable and can be automated when running a large number across the network.
Load Balancing
Load-balancing capabilities manage the traffic entering containers, ensuring the allocated resources are sufficient to manage it. Resources can be shuffled depending on need throughout the container network with the ability to set specific configurations.
Benefits of Container Engine
Making use of the various container engine capabilities offered by the provider, the benefits of using a container engine include:
- Streamlines container management operations
- Boosts containers performance
- Improves container applications security
- Automation of tasks and commands
- Compatibility with multicloud and hybrid cloud solutions
- Boosts environment flexibility
- Optimizes IT costs in the long-term
- Scalability
Container Engine Use Cases
Container engine software and services are being used by organizations in various industries:
PayPal
PayPal is a multinational provider of financial technology services. Based in Palo Alto, California, PayPal services are supported in hundreds of countries as an alternative to traditional money-transferring methods.
PayPal processes over 200 payments across multiple financial services platforms at a time. However, working across numerous architectures and cloud environments, PayPal suffered from a slow turnaround time for maintenance and deployment.
Working with MIRANTIS and Docker Enterprise, PayPal containerized its applications and managed the packages consistently.
“With Docker Enterprise, we are deprecating 15 years worth of toolsets and building a consistent operating model across multiple clouds,” says Meghdoot Bhattacharya, cloud engineer, PayPal.
Using Docker, PayPal could migrate over 7,000 of its applications into 200,000 containers, achieving a 50% increase in productivity.
AlteaCare
AlteaCare is a health care app that connects patients with health care providers at hospitals and clinics via video calls. Launched in Indonesia, the app garnered over 100,000 users and partnered with 17 hospitals.
As a company looking to grow dramatically over the next few years, AlteaCare used containerization and the Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) as its containerization engine for the application.
“With the support of AWS solution architects, and range of modern application services on AWS, we can maximize efficiency with reduced time and effort to expand our market offering,” says William Suryawan, co-founder and COO, AlteaCare.
“By continually optimizing our app on AWS, we have an opportunity to improve patient interactions with hospitals and ultimately, provide a better patient experience.”
Working with Amazon, AlteaCare achieved a 30% reduction in costs, accelerated time to market by 60%, and was able to officially launch in a month instead of the planned three months.
Etihad Airways
Etihad Airways is an airline in the United Arab Emirates that the Abu Dhabi government owns. The airline operates a fleet of more than 120 aircraft with destinations across six continents.
Etihad Airways was using an off-the-shelf check-in application for its onboarding processes. Launching a parallel mobile app, the airline wanted to modernize the flight check-in experience for its customers, so it’s more in line with its API-driven back-end technology.
Creating its own application from scratch, Etihad Airways used IBM Kubernetes to containerize its application, making it portable and compatible with various cloud environments. By also migrating the workload, Etihad Airways deployed its app on the IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.
“Containerization with Kubernetes aligned with our strategy of being able to move workloads around the platform. It will also help as we develop for mobile channels and kiosks, where we’re planning to reuse existing back-end services,” says Takhliq Hanif, head of group enterprise architecture, technology, and innovation, Etihad Airways.
“Traditionally, a move like that would take us weeks. With IBM Cloud, we were able to do it within hours and that’s a really powerful thing to achieve.”
Well within the 15-week deadline for the app, Etihad Airways new check-in solution generates 1,700 WhatsApp and 4,000 email boarding passes every day. It’s also available in several languages.
Container Engine Providers
Some of the leading providers of container engines in the global market include:
- Docker
- AWS
- Google Cloud
- IBM
- Microsoft
- Oracle
- Red Hat
- VMware
- Kubernetes
- Sandboxie
