Liquid Web The dawn of the 21st century signaled a new age for hardware virtualization, with hypervisor technologies like VMware and Hyper-V rapidly gaining popularity.
In recent years, there has been a shift toward cloud-native architecture. This development increases the demand for better performance, leading to the rise of containerization.
As container adoption surges, bare metal has emerged as a leading deployment solution due to its numerous benefits.
In this guide, you will learn about containers, virtual machines, bare metal, and the benefits of running your applications in bare metal containers.
Let’s get into it.
- Introduction to containers, virtual machines, and bare metal
- Benefits of containerization
- Can containers run on bare metal?
- Benefits of running containers on bare metal
- Deploying Kubernetes on bare metal
- Final thoughts: Unlocking the benefits of bare metal containers
Key points
- A container is a software unit encompassing all the dependencies you need to run an application in different computing environments.
- A virtual machine is an isolated server instance that functions as a physical computer with its CPU, RAM, and storage.
- Bare metal servers are physical machines dedicated to a single tenant.
- Containers can run on bare metal servers, but a host operating system is necessary to manage the underlying hardware resources./li>
- Bare metal containers offer benefits such as direct hardware access, optimal resource usage, and app isolation.
- Kubernetes is an open source orchestration platform that automates container deployment, scaling, and overall management.
Introduction to containers, virtual machines, and bare metal
Containers, virtual machines, and bare metal servers allow you to host your applications online. But what differentiates each from the other? Let’s find out.
What is a container?
Software is built and hosted in different environments. For instance, a web app can be built in a Windows environment using the WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack and hosted on an Ubuntu server running the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack.
However, one limitation of these methods is that moving applications between environments can be complicated. The difference in environments can create compatibility issues, complicating DevOps workflows. But containers solve this problem.
A container is an isolated software unit encompassing all the dependencies (i.e., runtime, code, and configuration files) needed to run an app in any environment.
However, you need a containerization platform like Docker to create a container. It virtualizes the operating system, allowing you to run multiple containers simultaneously.
What is a virtual machine?
A virtual machine is an isolated computing environment that runs on a host computer. It mimics the functionality of a physical computer, letting you run multiple operating systems on a single host.
A hypervisor is the underlying software in a physical server that carves it into multiple virtual machines and enables them to run independent operating systems.
You can install an operating system and other apps as you would on a regular computer, but you can’t physically move it from place to place like a desktop computer.
What is a bare metal server?
Bare metal servers are physical machines dedicated to a single user. Because bare metal servers don’t have a hypervisor installed, the single user (known as a tenant) has complete control of the server’s infrastructure.
This means you can run any operating system of your choice and fine-tune the hardware for unique data-intensive workloads.
A significant benefit of bare metal servers is that you won’t have to deal with the noisy-neighbor effect — a performance degradation that occurs when multiple tenants share hardware resources. So, you can expect optimal performance and maximum security even when hosting resource-intensive apps.
Benefits of containerization
A key benefit of containers is the consistency they provide for apps running across different computing environments. But there’s more.
Let’s consider some additional benefits of containerizing applications.
Portability
Containers are inherently portable because they encapsulate everything your apps need to function in various environments. Portability makes it possible to consistently run apps across different platforms without encountering any compatibility issues, ensuring smooth operations.
For instance, you can deploy an app from an on-premise testing server to a public cloud staging environment without needing to make significant configuration adjustments.
Efficient resource utilization
Containers only pack the files and dependencies an app needs to run. They optimize resource utilization by allowing apps to fully use all the available resources, unlike virtual machines which only use up a portion of available resources and leave the rest to other VMs.
Also, containers drastically minimize overheads by virtualizing the host operating system. This is different from virtual machines, which virtualize hardware, creating the need for a hypervisor and multiple operating systems for each VM in a data center.
Flexibility
Containers aren’t exclusively built to run in virtual environments. They rise to the occasion if you need them to run on your laptop, office desktop, bare metal server, private or public cloud, or hybrid cloud environment.
The cherry on top? You can build a container for your app’s core microservices if you have a web app based on the microservice architecture. Then, you can deploy other microservices individually as independent containers in a different environment.
Scalability
Containers enable horizontal scalability, which means you can improve your app’s responsiveness and availability by increasing the instances available to handle requests.
You can replicate containers to handle increased workloads on the same or different hosts using container orchestration tools like Kubernetes.
Improved security
Containers in a host server are isolated, which means each container has its own set of resources. Isolation ensures containers don’t interfere with each other’s performance, data, or resources unless you want them to.
This reduces the risk of unauthorized access, adding an extra layer of security to your containerized environment It also minimizes the impact of a security vulnerability if one container is compromised.
Speed
Containers are lightweight because of their standalone nature, allowing them to deliver speed in two important areas:
- Start-up time — Unlike virtual machines, containers don’t have a dedicated operating system to boot. Consequently, their start-up time is faster, allowing apps to open quickly.
- Deployment — Containers create a consistent environment for apps to run, making it easier to roll out updates across different environments. This significantly reduces the software development cycle and reduces errors.
Can containers run on bare metal?
Yes, containers can run on bare metal servers. However, you need to install both an operating system and a container runtime engine.
An operating system provides the kernel and system resources necessary for running containers on a bare metal server.
On the other hand, a container runtime engine provides a layer of abstraction between the host operating system and your container. Popular examples include Docker Engine, containerd, and CRI-O.
Using an application programming interface (API), the container runtime engine interacts with the kernel to create, manage, and isolate containers while handling memory allocation, process management, networking, and security tasks.
Benefits of running containers on bare metal
Bare metal containers harness the speed of containerization and the high security levels of bare metal servers to deliver unmatched performance. But there’s more to this synergy.
Here’s a rundown of more benefits of running bare metal containers.
Direct hardware access
Containers conventionally run on virtual machines. Although this lowers hosting costs, it creates overheads that reduce performance levels.
Since containers can’t access hardware directly in a virtualized environment, VMs have a guest operating system that uses the hypervisor to reach the hardware.
This creates a performance overhead, which slows down your containers.
Bare metal servers eliminate this problem entirely. It reduces overhead and I/O latency by giving containers direct hardware access using the host operating system’s kernel.
Optimal use of system resources
A bare metal container dedicates an entire server’s resources to a single workload. This translates into robust performance that lets bare metal containers handle resource-intensive workloads like data analytics.
Unlike bare metal containers, virtual machines cannot use an entire server’s resources. One of the downsides of virtual machines is that their power is limited to the resources a hypervisor assigns them.
Even if a virtual machine were assigned an entire server, it still can’t utilize all of the server’s resources. That’s because the hypervisor uses a portion of the server’s resources for its own operations.
Bare metal containers also allow you to limit how many resources a specific container can use. Although this is not completely necessary, it gives you more control over resource utilization.
App isolation
In a bare metal container, container processes are separated from each other. Isolation at the process level has a few benefits. For example, some web applications are deployed as multiple containers, as seen in microservices.
In that case, if one of the containers fails, the rest of the application runs smoothly without being affected by the failed container. Additionally, if malicious actors compromise one of the containers, the rest remain secure and functional.
Deploying Kubernetes on bare metal
So, you’ve learned about the power of containers and what they can do for you. You’ve decided to deploy several containers, but something still feels off — everything feels overly manual.
When a container fails, you want another one to start automatically. Or maybe you need an efficient way of deploying multiple containers to a hybrid computing environment.
You can count on Kubernetes to get the job done in all the above scenarios.
Kubernetes, abbreviated “K8S,” is a container orchestration platform that helps you manage, configure, and automate containerized workloads.
The main reason you need Kubernetes is to eliminate downtime through automation. It adds resilience to your system by handling failover and scaling.
Below are additional benefits of managing bare metal containers using Kubernetes:
- Load balancing — If one of your containers experiences a surge in traffic, Kubernetes can automatically distribute the traffic across other instances of the container to stabilize your deployment.
- Self-healing — While Kubernetes can restart and replace containers that fail, they can also shut down containers that don’t respond to health checks. This increases your app’s availability and stability.
Read our extensive tutorial on how to deploy Kubernetes on bare metal to learn how to achieve unparalleled operational efficiency.
Final thoughts: Unlocking the benefits of bare metal containers
The lightweight nature of containers and the benefits of bare metal servers deliver unmatched speed and performance to your apps.
With Kubernetes in the picture, you get even more benefits like improved resilience, stability, and availability.
However, you can only unlock the full performance of bare metal containers when you have excellent container hosting infrastructure from a reliable provider that prioritizes high security and 100 percent uptime. And that’s where Liquid Web comes in.
Our dedicated servers give you exclusive access to computing resources, which you can configure to deploy and run your containers. We also give you complete control over your server, letting you customize it to suit your exact specifications.
If you’re unsure which of our plans is right for you, we’re happy to help. Contact us today.