How I learned to stop worrying and love containers

Tommy Falgout, Cloud Solution Architect

Containers are a very popular technology, and to understand why you must first understand the problem they solve and how they solve it.

At their core, containers allow you to easily create and run software in isolated environments. As a "heads-down" developer for 20+ years, I've lost countless hours trying to get my code working across different environments. I became a developer because I love to develop and, for me, time spent on integration is time away from development.

The fundamental theorem of software engineering is “We can solve any problem by introducing an extra level of indirection”. In our case, the concept means separate your requirements from your implementation. The problem of running software in unique environments is solved by introducing a layer that is consistent across different environments. This concept is applied everywhere today. HDMI cables are a layer of indirection for connecting video sources and destinations. Airport security isn’t connected to the airline you use. The headphone jack doesn't care about how you're playing or listening to your music. This allows for new and creative implementations.

Containers provide a layer for developers and operations that allow them to not worry where their application is running. The amount of productivity regained alone would be the reason to fuel popularity of container technology. Containers free us developers to do more development.

Register for the Applications and Infrastructure Community call on Friday, November 17 to learn more. The call will provide insight into what is most important in the Microsoft partner ecosystem. We'll have a conversational dialogue between two technology professionals that is designed to appeal to technical, sales, and business professionals. One presenter will discuss containers from an infrastructure perspective, the other from an application development perspective.

Applications and Infrastructure Technical Community

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