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Virtualization vs. containers - change of demand
It would be interesting to know hosting providers' opinion (those selling VPS/VDS - VMs) on the below topic.
There are always rumors of virtualization/container techniques getting extinct. In this case, I am eager to know whether the actual demand for containers (OpenVZ, LXC, Linux VServer) is actually dwindling, comparing with actual virtualization (VMWare, KVM, Xen, Hyper-V etc).
As far as I can see, LXC/VServer are rare birds on market, but OpenVZ is as ubiquitous as it was 3-5 years ago. Yet I frequently read that containers are too obsolete to be of actual use.
So the question is, are they really? Personally, when it's possible, I try to avoid containers when buying external VM service (due to their limitations).
Comments
The market is certainly entirely shifting to KVM. Even AWS if I'm not incorrect.
You are talking about their Nitro Hypervisor, derived from KVM. Yes, that's true.
I still feel like theres a place for containers
I still use containers as much as I use KVM and I only have a preference when the application / purpose requires KVM.
That being said, I do believe the future is cloud / KVM and it will continue to shift that way
will digitalocean also release KVM-ish plan?
Some providers are still saying, they make most of the money with containers, I would say they see the KVM wave not comming yet.
I don't see openvz remaining popular after vz6's 2019 EOL. Plus, these days people prefer to run their own containers e.g. docker inside VMs.
KVM is the way forward.
Digital ocean already use kvm exclusively?
Afaik, they only do KVM.
For me, LXC/containerisation is perfect for personal or production use when deployed on your own owned/leased hardware. But when it comes to renting, these days I'd avoid containers and stick to KVM. Less about privacy and more about security. LXC still has a place on my server tho
AWS never used containers. They were a Xen shop and migrated to KVM few years ago.
Didn't the move to KVM happen when customers wanted full virtualization since some software benefit from full virtualization like KVM rather than containers like OpenVZ?
That's one reason why I moved to KVM.
Was talking about the market as a whole, excluded the containers part in my answer entirely.
I know AWS never had containers.
But anyways, in 2018 likely the only container based software to survive is probably Docker like... ran on a KVM.
They're a little special, though. Most companies don't have a flock of PhDs on staff to write custom hypervisors for them.
It's like Facebook and MySQL. Any lessons drawn from their use of MySQL are kind of bogus since they have PhDs who rewrite and tweak the core product for their own internal use.
We still see more people buying OpenVZ compared to KVM even though our KVM plans are cheaper than our OpenVZ plans. It's strange.
Is it in smaller plans? Like 256mb? Maybe they recognize the lesser overhead rather than KVM, perhaps?
We do sell a lot of those, but even for the larger plans people opt for OpenVZ significantly more than KVM even if KVM is cheaper. The only thing I can think of is the added features we offer for OpenVZ that can't be implemented with our KVM services. Or maybe those people are like me and just prefer OpenVZ over KVM.
I must use VDS virt since I host everything on LXD containers so something like KVM is a must for me.
Will no longer accept OVZ etc (unless some long-term free offer appears hehe)
Yeah you think that, it'll just be a mountain of people running old kernels.
Proxmox users got completely cockblocked for OpenVZ patches and there's now community released patches/kernels to get by.
At this point, it isn't like they're adding more features. If people have hardware compat issues you'll simply see them slab the boxes and call it a day.
Francisco
That's a great way to go... LXD works beautifully, and the built-in DNS/service/name/discovery is fantastic as well, especially with HAProxy. Do you put an HAProxy container as an SSL termination proxy/domain load-balancing in front as well?
Workloads are not that high in my case so such setup isn't yet necessary. I'm using several containers each for a totally different purpose.
Beside the great performance what I like most about LXD/LXC is portability which saves me a lot of work as well as the ability to download snapshots and control my backups which is a big plus