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We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

redhat.com

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Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#3
> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly.

I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#4
I'm all for improvements to pod startup times etc, but the general idea of putting more software into cars is not that appealing. I recently broke down in the highlands of Scotland in a fairly new car with the family - it was a horrible experience. It was made worse by the fact that there was nobody close that had a clue what to do with the car. The breakdown service arrived promptly, plugged the diagnostic tool into the car, proclaimed it broken, called a tow truck and left - two days later we arrived home. Had I been in a less complex car, a local garage could most likely have fixed the problem and sent us on our way. The sophistication and gadgets in modern cars are great until something goes wrong then they fail hard. Small local garages that used to be a life saver are next to useless now as they don't have the tools and knowledge to fix a mobile data centre.

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#5
post #3

> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly. I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

Playing Devil's advocate here, but there are some good reasons you might do this. For example, Docker's "pull" system is great for updates, and means it's trivial to rollback to an earlier version if something went wrong. A Docker registry also means you can easily switch to another version when needed. You also get a supervision of containers, with automatic restarts (yes, I know you can do this nowadays with systemd :)

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#6
post #3

> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly. I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

I agree. Microservices are a great concept for a lot of problems. But now I constantly see way too small services. Every tiny piece of software gets its own service and its own software lifecycle (including versioning and deployment).

And what happens now is, that you need a huge effort to integrate all those components. End to end system tests get much more important, but are still harder to do than simple unit/integration tests. traditional testing strategies start to get pointless, because most bugs now only appear when combining services in a production setup.

Yes, development gets easier, because every team can just develop, without aligning too much with other teams. But the deployment/ops/acceptance step often gets impossibly complex.

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#7
post #5
post #3

> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly. I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

Playing Devil's advocate here, but there are some good reasons you might do this. For example, Docker's "pull" system is great for updates, and means it's trivial to rollback to an earlier version if something went wrong. A Docker registry also means you can easily switch to another version when needed. You also get a supervision of containers, with automatic restarts (yes, I know you can do this nowadays with system…

Yup, I can imagine complete images are easier to version-manage and to tag as minor/major/hotfix than each individual part of the stack.

I think people underestimate the amount of software that is ALREADY running in their cars/airplanes/helicopters and even elevators.

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#8
post #5
post #3

> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly. I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

Playing Devil's advocate here, but there are some good reasons you might do this. For example, Docker's "pull" system is great for updates, and means it's trivial to rollback to an earlier version if something went wrong. A Docker registry also means you can easily switch to another version when needed. You also get a supervision of containers, with automatic restarts (yes, I know you can do this nowadays with system…

Sure, but if you provide the possibility to deploy a lot of components separately, at some point they will run in different versions. And who knows if rear view camera 1.3.22-44 works with turn signal 4.86.233-stable and break pedal 0.6.9876-beta?

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#9
post #5
post #3

> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly. I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

Playing Devil's advocate here, but there are some good reasons you might do this. For example, Docker's "pull" system is great for updates, and means it's trivial to rollback to an earlier version if something went wrong. A Docker registry also means you can easily switch to another version when needed. You also get a supervision of containers, with automatic restarts (yes, I know you can do this nowadays with system…

A statically compiled executable is even easier, and can be hosted on your webserver

Re: We achieved a 6-fold increase in Podman startup speed

#10
post #5
post #3

> If the backup camera or other sensors were to run as containers, we needed to improve the starting speed significantly. I think I see the problem already. Why does anyone think its a good idea to put everything in an embedded system into a container? Particularly as everything comes from a single vendor and so the usual argument about "but libraries are too hard!" doesn't apply.

Playing Devil's advocate here, but there are some good reasons you might do this. For example, Docker's "pull" system is great for updates, and means it's trivial to rollback to an earlier version if something went wrong. A Docker registry also means you can easily switch to another version when needed. You also get a supervision of containers, with automatic restarts (yes, I know you can do this nowadays with system…

"yum", "apt" etc have registries, roll back etc and have for a good few decades.
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