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VM's vs. Containers

This document compares and contrasts virtual machines (VMs) and containers. It defines VMs as emulations of full computer systems that each require their own operating system. Containers share an operating system kernel and libraries, making them more lightweight than VMs. The document outlines benefits and popular providers of each technology. It recommends using VMs for applications that require full operating system resources and containers for maximizing the number of applications per server with minimal resources.

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Nas Siri
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151 views

VM's vs. Containers

This document compares and contrasts virtual machines (VMs) and containers. It defines VMs as emulations of full computer systems that each require their own operating system. Containers share an operating system kernel and libraries, making them more lightweight than VMs. The document outlines benefits and popular providers of each technology. It recommends using VMs for applications that require full operating system resources and containers for maximizing the number of applications per server with minimal resources.

Uploaded by

Nas Siri
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What’s the Diff: VMs vs Containers

By Roderick Bauer | June 28th, 2018

Both VMs and containers can help get the most out of available computer
hardware and software resources. Containers are the new kids on the block,
but VMs have been, and continue to be, tremendously popular in data
centers of all sizes.

If you’re looking for the best solution for running your own services in the
cloud, you need to understand these virtualization technologies, how they
compare to each other, and what are the best uses for each. Here’s our
quick introduction.

Basic Definitions — VMs and Containers

What are VMs?

A virtual machine (VM) is an emulation of a computer system. Put simply, it


makes it possible to run what appear to be many separate computers on
hardware that is actually one computer.
The operating systems (“OS”) and their applications share hardware
resources from a single host server, or from a pool of host servers. Each VM
requires its own underlying OS, and the hardware is virtualized. A
hypervisor, or a virtual machine monitor, is software, firmware, or hardware
that creates and runs VMs. It sits between the hardware and the virtual
machine and is necessary to virtualize the server.

Since the advent of affordable virtualization technology and cloud


computing services, IT departments large and small have embraced virtual
machines (VMs) as a way to lower costs and increase efficiencies.

VMs, however, can take up a lot of system resources. Each VM runs not just
a full copy of an operating system, but a virtual copy of all the hardware
that the operating system needs to run. This quickly adds up to a lot of
RAM and CPU cycles. That’s still economical compared to running separate
actual computers, but for some applications it can be overkill, which led to
the development of containers.

Benefits of VMs

 All OS resources available to apps


 Established management tools
 Established security tools
 Better known security controls

Popular VM Providers

 VMware vSphere
 VirtualBox
 Xen
 Hyper-V
 KVM

What are Containers?

With containers, instead of virtualizing the underlying computer like a


virtual machine (VM), just the OS is virtualized.

Containers sit on top of a physical server and its host OS — typically Linux
or Windows. Each container shares the host OS kernel and, usually, the
binaries and libraries, too. Shared components are read-only. Sharing OS
resources such as libraries significantly reduces the need to reproduce the
operating system code, and means that a server can run multiple workloads
with a single operating system installation. Containers are thus
exceptionally light — they are only megabytes in size and take just seconds
to start. Compared to containers, VMs take minutes to run and are an order
of magnitude larger than an equivalent container.
In contrast to VMs, all that a container requires is enough of an operating
system, supporting programs and libraries, and system resources to run a
specific program. What this means in practice is you can put two to three
times as many as applications on a single server with containers than you
can with a VM. In addition, with containers you can create a portable,
consistent operating environment for development, testing, and
deployment.

Types of Containers

Linux Containers (LXC) — The original Linux container technology is Linux


Containers, commonly known as LXC. LXC is a Linux operating system level
virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems on a
single host.
Docker — Docker started as a project to build single-application LXC
containers, introducing several changes to LXC that make containers more
portable and flexible to use. It later morphed into its own container runtime
environment. At a high level, Docker is a Linux utility that can efficiently
create, ship, and run containers.

Benefits of Containers

 Reduced IT management resources


 Reduced size of snapshots
 Quicker spinning up apps
 Reduced & simplified security updates
 Less code to transfer, migrate, upload workloads

Popular Container Providers

 Linux Containers
o LXC
o LXD
o CGManager
 Docker
 Windows Server Containers

Uses for VMs vs Uses for Containers

Both containers and VMs have benefits and drawbacks, and the ultimate
decision will depend on your specific needs, but there are some general
rules of thumb.

 VMs are a better choice for running apps that require all of the
operating system’s resources and functionality, when you need to run
multiple applications on servers, or have a wide variety of operating
systems to manage.
 Containers are a better choice when your biggest priority is
maximizing the number of applications running on a minimal number
of servers.

What’s the Diff: VMs vs Containers

VMs Containers

Heavyweight Lightweight

Limited performance Native performance

Each VM runs in its own OS All containers share the host OS

Hardware-level virtualization OS virtualization

Startup time in minutes Startup time in milliseconds

Allocates required memory Requires less memory space

Fully isolated and hence more secure Process-level isolation, possibly less secure

For most, the ideal setup is likely to include both. With the current state of
virtualization technology, the flexibility of VMs and the minimal resource
requirements of containers work together to provide environments with
maximum functionality.

If your organization is running a large number of instances of the same


operating system, then you should look into whether containers are a good
fit. They just might save you significant time and money over VMs.

Are you Using VMs, Containers, or Both?


We will explore this topic in greater depth in subsequent posts. If you are
using VMs or containers, we’d love to hear from you about what you’re
using and how you’re using them.

Roderick Bauer

Content Director at Backblaze

Roderick has held marketing, engineering, and product management


positions with Adobe, Microsoft, Autodesk, and several startups. He's
consulted to Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Stanford University, Dell,
the Pentagon, and the White House. He was a Ford-Mozilla Fellow in Media
and Democracy with Common Cause in Washington, D.C., where he
advocated for a free, open, and accessible internet for all, reducing media
consolidation, and transparency in politics and the media.

He is Content Director for Backblaze.

Follow Roderick on: 


Twitter: @rodbauer | LinkedIn | Medium | Flickr | SmugMug

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