Improving Software Deployment and Maintenance : Case study: Container vs. Virtual Machine

Abstract: Setting up one's software environment and ensuring that all dependencies and settings are the same across the board when deploying an application, can nowadays be a time consuming and frustrating experience. To solve this, the industry has come up with an alternative deployment environment called software containers, or simply containers. These are supposed to help with eliminating the current troubles with virtual machines to create a more streamlined deployment experience.The aim of this study was to compare this deployment technique, containers, against the currently most popular method, virtual machines. This was done using a case study where an already developed application was migrated to a container and deployed online using a cloud provider’s services. Then the application could be deployed via the same cloud service but onto a virtual machine directly, enabling a comparison of the two techniques. During these processes, information was gathered concerning the usability of the two environments. To gain a broader perspective regarding the usability, an interview was conducted as well. Resulting in more well-founded conclusions. The conclusion is that containers are more efficient regarding the use of resources. This could improve the service provided to the customers by improving the quality of the service through more reliable uptimes and speed of service. However, containers also grant more freedom and transfers most of the responsibility over to the developers. This is not always a benefit in larger companies, where regulations must be followed, where a certain level of control over development processes is necessary and where quality control is very important. Further research could be done to see whether containers can be adapted to another company’s current environment. Moreover, how different cloud provider’s services differ.