IBM Container Based App Development Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by [deleted]

In terms of business value, business executives focus most on practical benefits, highly valuing (61%) the potential of containers to reduce costs related to production downtime, improve applic­ation quality (56%) and employee produc­tivity (53%). While remaining wary of contai­ners’ unproven efficiency (55%), business executives nevert­heless see the potential effici­encies in the DevOps pipeline (77%) as the single most valuable potential benefit in using containers

1. In order of import­ance, enterp­ris­e-grade security, tools that ease operat­ional challe­nges, support for cloud and on-pre­mises enviro­nments, and flexible applic­ation archit­ectures are the key drivers of contai­ner­-based cloud platform adoption.

2. In terms of using and adopting contai­ner­-based platforms, solving challenges related to the new technology currently oversh­adows the demand for advanced services like AI and big data analysis tools.

3. Using containers is associated with improving app quality, reducing both app develo­pment costs and production app downtime, and facili­tating user experience innova­tion.

4. Container usage for production enterprise workloads is expected to increase from 25 percent to 44 percent within the next three years. Deployment will shift heavily to Hybrid Cloud and support for on-pre­mises, serverless contai­nerized enviro­nments. Deploying only on public clouds will decrease.

5. Respon­dents see enterprise applic­ations as best suited for contai­ner­-based applic­ation develo­pment. Over 40 percent of respon­dents consider apps involving data analytics best positioned to benefit from being contai­ner­ized, and approx­imately a third consider web serving, database and CRM apps best positioned to benefit.

6. Commercial solutions could be the catalyst for contai­ner­-based develo­pment to expand beyond open source framew­orks. Commercial solutions are perceived as highly correlated with DevOps, micros­ervices develo­pment and automation tools that reduce the operat­ional and uncert­ainty challenges that currently overburden the container market.

7. Cloud platform support for developing and easily migrating apps is fundam­ental for fostering investment in contai­ner­-based develo­pment. Two-thirds of respon­dents value the ability to allow users to design container compute enviro­nments.

8. Consulting services are considered only necessary for complex endeavors — for example (and especi­ally), when companies seek to leverage AI within contai­nerized apps and need support for non-x86 archit­ect­ures.

9. Compared to IT execut­ives, developers favor contai­ner­-based techno­logies and are likely to report strategic benefits from using them. Developers are especially interested in AI, Machine Learning, big data, non-x86 and industry use cases.

10. Across the range of roles, respon­dents see insuff­icient internal expertise as one of the signif­icant challenges of adopting contai­ner­-based app develo­pment. IT executives are concerned with time and cost uncert­ainty, whereas developers are bogged down by operat­ional challenges like redesi­gning on-pre­mises apps and managing data across contai­ners.

11. Developers value a platform that is best suited to support diverse enviro­nments. For developers and IT execut­ives, compat­ibility with their current IT enviro­nment and ease of use rank among the top reasons why a container platform is selected.

12. The primary buyers and leading influe­ncers of container invest­ments are the heads of IT operations and senior IT execut­ives. However, app develo­pment leaders, DevOps teams and app developers are also highly influe­ntial.