Issue link: https://insights.oneneck.com/i/1293607
48 Containers For Dummies, HPE and Docker Special Edition These materials are © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Ongoing Management Before you do anything, make sure you get the tools right. Too many IT departments have deployed way too many tools because they didn't plan things out well in advance of deployment. If you standardize on formats for containers and tools for ongoing man- agement (such as Kubernetes, Mesosphere, or Docker Swarm and Universal Control Plane), you can drastically reduce tool sprawl. Doing so allows developers and operations to work from the same toolchain and promotes collaborative working styles. Knowing What Is Needed Before delving into container technology, you need to understand what you're trying to achieve. Are you looking for greater agility? If so, map out your existing processes to understand what part of the process is slowing you down. Next, assess the types of work- loads that are part of this process. Are they suitable for contain- erization? For example, are they mainly stateless? When you understand the areas for improvement and know that the workloads are appropriate for containerization, look to introduce automation in your nonproduction environments and use containers to implement and automate a continuous integration (CI) process. CI is an ideal use case for containers, because the build/test/package steps are generally short-lived and transient — exactly like containers. HPE IT: RETHINKING YOUR APPLICATION ARCHITECTURE Containers require a new general mind-set about how applications function in the data center, particularly because the walls of the tradi- tional data center are often shattered due to the way in which con- tainers can operate. Architect for resiliency at the application layer, as opposed to the infrastructure layer. This is essential when deploying containers at density.