How to use IoT containers for applications?

With the fast convergence of IoT applications and Operation technology, the container system is undertaking a huge leap from enterprise to IoT equipment. IT platforms are borrowing fresh ideas from embedded designing with distributed computing and real-time capability.

The innovative field of software development is paving the way for scalable, modular implementations. With strong projections for market growth, container technology is a big result of that.

What is a Container?  

This technology is a viable method of packaging an entire application, like virtual machines, without overhead, so that they can function, isolated without depending on anything else. It runs reliably smoothly when moved from one computing environment to the next. They are like virtual machines or VMs. 

Each of the containers is a result of the processing of virtual resources and the file system like CPU, hard disk, memory, and more. The container has the software along with the binaries, configuration files, libraries, and together it is migrated as a single unit. It also facilitates the software deployment to the server.  They are a lightweight and modified approach towards virtualization. The developers are striving to create new IoT applications through the usage containers to bring results in constructive ways. 

Container-Based IoT applications 

It has been predicted that, by the year 2020, almost 20 billion objects will be connected to it. The sea of change that is coming in this field is humongous, with the far-reaching capabilities of the Internet of Things application at an enterprise level. 

The advent of DevOps has brought about massive changes in the way software is tested, developed, and deployed. With IoT, it has reached another level, and containers are taking an updated approach towards it.  

While the number of container-based tools has increased in the market today, it's integrated with the Internet of Things solutions as well. Here are 5 examples of it.

• Docker – Open source, Linux based project, this is an IoT container-based application/virtualization. Docker is the first example of IoT architecture that popularized the concept of giving the developers an easy to use, fast packaging system along with a steady deployment and distribution mechanism needed for the software containers. 
• This container offers a low overhead runtime along with highly scalable updates. Easy to install and simple to use, it can be run or shipped anywhere. Its ecosystem of tools includes registry service, native clustering, and cloud service.  

•  Kubernetes – Another container application, open-source and for cluster managing, it offers to give a strong platform for automating deployment, scaling, and operation across a cluster of various hosts. Google is the designer of it, which is why it has an existing community of users, including GitHub. though hard to install, with the support of many manual configurations, a few creation tools make this procedure of setup easy. 
• It is still not aligned with the IoT basics technology, but it is preferred because of its extended container space.    

• Resin.io – This startup is aiming to bring the advantages of Linux containers to the IoT world. Deployment, updates, and maintenance are simplified on all remote devices. The web development is being brought to the hardware. 
• This creates a modern framework of DevOps, deploying the codes across different IoT devices. Recently, the Resin OS 2.0 has been invented that utilizes the Linux distribution (custom) docker containers on various embedded devices.    

• Kontena – This project is seeking to be another part of the expanding ecosystem of containers, involving easy cloud integration and a microservice environment. 
• Experts assume that this will be extremely beneficial for huge scale deployment, management, scaling, and monitoring is possible on any cloud-based infrastructure. It has great potential for contributions to a simplified deployment of IoT development and container applications.

• Amazon EC2- This belongs to the tech giant Amazon, a cloud-based, contemporary computing system for container managing. Running and altering of the application is allowed on clusters through the API calls and others. This container management system is massively scalable, and the applications will run on a bundle of Amazon EC2 instances. 

Next-Gen IoT devices

This shift towards the scheme of modular development needs to gain momentum so that IoT devices can be brought into next-generation usability. It demands changes to the model as well as its technicalities. The vendors of the hardware system have to start allowing third parties to add new features to the devices by building a new deployment model.  As the transition continues to happen towards containerization, new products can solve their prolonged issues faster by retaining the OS or operating system. The world needs IoT centric platforms for more IoT devices. The container modules should be capable of segregating and managing all the functions of the device. Consequently, the IoT companies in India can focus on bringing out the best results.