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Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

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Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#11

Post by hueving »

sagichmal wrote: post #6
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Container hype is running high. Developers have flocked to the technology for more easily packaging applications and running them across various disparate environments. It's a hype that should die in a fire bigger than the one reserved for Adobe Flash. Many people will think they can just deploy a shitload of containers and be done... well, each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for securit…

> each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for security fixes... No, of course not. No single container should have a lifetime greater than a day or two. "Maintenance" is deploying the latest, integration- and end-to-end-tested version of the software, as part of a continuous build pipeline.

So you depend on every application company to update their containers for every library vulnerability that emerges that they embed? Good luck with that.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#12

Post by jstanley »

mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Container hype is running high. Developers have flocked to the technology for more easily packaging applications and running them across various disparate environments. It's a hype that should die in a fire bigger than the one reserved for Adobe Flash. Many people will think they can just deploy a shitload of containers and be done... well, each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for securit…

> Many people will think they can just deploy a shitload of containers and be done... well, each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for security fixes...

Do you apply the same kind of reasoning to virtual machines, and reach the conclusion that a single massive mainframe is the optimal configuration?

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#13

Post by vdaniuk »

mkhpalm wrote: post #9
vdaniuk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten so much utility out of docker, it feels absurd to read this comment. Containers made the sysadmin part significantly easier, whether it was testing new Node releases, trying out random databases or learning new languages. Without containers I would be spending a lot of time configuring servers/VMs and failing at that. So strange.

I don't think anybody is suggesting containers are bad for ephemeral exploration, development, the things you mention. The argument is what you use it for when it comes to production. For example if you're modeling machines with docker you're already using it wrong. Even docker considers that an anti-pattern.

I've invested some time to learn about best practices and have been using docker in production for many months with completely satisfactory results. I am not seeing a rational discussion here.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#14

Post by nmjohn »

hueving wrote: post #11
sagichmal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for security fixes... No, of course not. No single container should have a lifetime greater than a day or two. "Maintenance" is deploying the latest, integration- and end-to-end-tested version of the software, as part of a continuous build pipeline.

So you depend on every application company to update their containers for every library vulnerability that emerges that they embed? Good luck with that.

> their containers

Build your own images, problem solved. (Albeit creating a whole host of other problems in place of it, but those are no worse than a world without containers.)

No one relying on third party images beyond an OS can claim that they _really_ care about security or vulnerabilities anyway.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#15

Post by striking »

> Pricing has not yet been set, but it will be a subscription, freemium model; A beta version of the software will be available soon.

Buzzwords abound. How do they know a freemium model will be possible without losing money? Why will they put out a beta rather than starting with a "gold" version of the software?

Articles like these do not bode well for their subjects. They read like symptoms rather than anything that actually increases hype in my view.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#16

Post by olalonde »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Container hype is running high. Developers have flocked to the technology for more easily packaging applications and running them across various disparate environments. It's a hype that should die in a fire bigger than the one reserved for Adobe Flash. Many people will think they can just deploy a shitload of containers and be done... well, each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for securit…

I've tried so hard as an infrastructure person to explain this to people. It's better just to ignore the hype or move to sane orgs that aren't on the container hype train (so you're not wasting valuable time on tech that's going to get gutted eventually). There is no magic tech that makes problems go away. Just abstractions (sometimes they work, sometimes they don't).

It's hard to take your criticism seriously when Google, Netflix, Heroku, Shopify, Paypal, Uber, Ebay, Yelp, Spotify don't qualify as "sane" orgs according to your criteria.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#17

Post by weego »

olalonde wrote: post #16
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried so hard as an infrastructure person to explain this to people. It's better just to ignore the hype or move to sane orgs that aren't on the container hype train (so you're not wasting valuable time on tech that's going to get gutted eventually). There is no magic tech that makes problems go away. Just abstractions (sometimes they work, sometimes they don't).

It's hard to take your criticism seriously when Google, Netflix, Heroku, Shopify, Paypal, Uber, Ebay, Yelp, Spotify don't qualify as "sane" orgs according to your criteria.

Meh large companies have large numbers of devs with varied opinions and power to apply those opinions. Lots of things we think of as shit now and have since dropped like a heavy coat has no doubt been implemented at one time by at least 1 of the companies you listed. It's whether they stand the test of time.

The number of man hours invested (wasted imo) into pointless layers of container stacks is mind blowing and I'm yet to see the return on investment for any of it in real world scenarios. The cynic in me sometimes thinks you get some new abstraction to beta and the set up your own con and get some time off work to talk about it, and having been a primary speaker at a conference gets your CV gravitas. Theres a con for every goddam library any Big Name releases before you can even properly evaluate it in a prod stack.

As as side point that doesn't entirely fit with my argument the most important lesson I took away from dev conferences when I still went to them is that devs wax lyrical about all kinds of things in public, but often the things they talk about are their pet projects or sidelined to some small part of the business that doesn't really affect the main workflow, yet because they work at a Big Name we attach importance to it.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#18

Post by throwaway2048 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Container hype is running high. Developers have flocked to the technology for more easily packaging applications and running them across various disparate environments. It's a hype that should die in a fire bigger than the one reserved for Adobe Flash. Many people will think they can just deploy a shitload of containers and be done... well, each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for securit…

I've tried so hard as an infrastructure person to explain this to people. It's better just to ignore the hype or move to sane orgs that aren't on the container hype train (so you're not wasting valuable time on tech that's going to get gutted eventually). There is no magic tech that makes problems go away. Just abstractions (sometimes they work, sometimes they don't).

Containers turn app developers/deployers into distro maintainers. This is far outside the kind of thing they are likely to be competent at, and because they get their own enviroment very grevious problems can and do go unaddressed, because there is no apparent effect on other things.

Until of course, everything explodes.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#19

Post by cwilkes »

mschuster91 wrote: post #8
vdaniuk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten so much utility out of docker, it feels absurd to read this comment. Containers made the sysadmin part significantly easier, whether it was testing new Node releases, trying out random databases or learning new languages. Without containers I would be spending a lot of time configuring servers/VMs and failing at that. So strange.

> Without containers I would be spending a lot of time configuring servers/VMs and failing at that If it turns out during evaluation that setting up a simple Debian VM with the requirements of the tool, the tool ends up on the "black list" for me. No matter the possible productivity gains, I won't use anything needing more than two hours just to get started (i.e. running a Hello World).

No matter the possible productivity gains, I won't use anything needing more than two hours just to get started (i.e. running a Hello World).

well that certainly helps frame your posts. In this case docker has a webpage that you can play around with. Maybe 10 minutes to get the basic idea.

I'm struggling to find out where your hostility comes from. It doesn't make your job disposable, which it sounds like where your fear comes from. Just because people can't come to you to get the ideal Debian server setup doesn't mean you are less valued.

Re: Ex VMware, Microsoft and Citrix workers set up application container company

#20

Post by stephengillie »

mschuster91 wrote: post #2

> Container hype is running high. Developers have flocked to the technology for more easily packaging applications and running them across various disparate environments. It's a hype that should die in a fire bigger than the one reserved for Adobe Flash. Many people will think they can just deploy a shitload of containers and be done... well, each and every single one of them has to be maintained, updated for securit…

Something I think a lot of people struggle with, both on the Dev side and the Ops side, is to think of VMs and containers as completely disposable. Does it add value, or help you, for you to have an emotional attachment to this server?

Instead of doing OS updates, application updates, code updates, and configuration updates to 50 identical webservers that live behind load balancers, it might be faster to upgrade one. Then that one can be templated, cloned and deployed and replace the currently operating ones. There's still server name, IP address, and other configuration that has to be automated, and sometimes automating this is harder than automating all that patching, sometimes not.

This obviates server histories. True - you can't say "This VM has always performed better than the others" since you get a new farm of VMs every month. While many see that as a downside, it's actually a benefit that you don't need to think about that data.

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