Scalyrs’ Insights webinar on CaaS (Containers as a Service) was an in-depth view of how this “as-a-Service” fits into the world of development. Thanks to Sylvia Fronczak for sharing the amazing knowledge she has on containers and for detailing where CaaS is different and where it fits for development and deployment.
I’ve included three key takeaways from the workshop, along with the full recording of the workshop.
Takeaway #1: CaaS fits in the gap between IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service).
CaaS is geared towards developers in that it abstracts from container orchestration down the stack while leaving complete flexibility for applications and runtime choices. Because of this, CaaS speeds up the build-ship-run stream without sacrificing flexibility in what you deliver.
Takeaway #2: Easier is not necessarily simpler.
While CaaS brings all the pieces together into a clean and integrated whole, you still need to be concerned in tailoring it to your specific application and environment needs. This includes making sure you are correctly load-balanced, that the networking (always a challenge in containers) is working correctly and that you manage your disparate parts, like storage and configurations.
Takeaway #3: Monitoring and Orchestration are incredibly important. Really!
It’s hard to deliver containers at scale without orchestration. Kubernetes is the de facto leader for container orchestration and most CaaS offerings make use of it. However, Kubernetes adds multiple levels of infrastructure and complexity, even though it is managed (mostly) for you.
As part of your CaaS deployments, make sure you are watching all the pieces like pods, containers and apps. Set alerts to keep you informed when things aren’t performing correctly and remember that the logs are still the ultimate source of truth in what is happening in your environment.
