Container technology collects the codes and creates packages of it as well as its dependencies in order to assist applications to run efficiently from one computing environment to another.
Container tools assist in managing every aspect of containers by automating them.
Below discussed are some of the container orchestration tools.
12 Container Orchestration Tools
Kubernetes assists in automating the process of deploying the applications and making it easy to manage and monitor them.
It assists in overcoming the challenges of deploying these applications and reduces the downtime for these applications.
Key Features:
• Kubernetes keeps track of every node and container that is currently active.
If any of the containers or nodes are not working or facing any error, Kubernetes helps restart these nodes and containers to continue their functioning.
• Since Kubernetes keeps introducing changes to user applications, it closely monitors any changes happening to the application.
If any change in the application properties is about to harm the application, Kubernetes won’t allow such changes to be executed.
• Scaling an application means creating replicas of the applications that a user wants to run.
Within Kubernetes, a user can scale its application up and down with a simple command.
Price: Need to contact sales team for price.
Customers use Amazon ECS for sensitive and priority applications because of its efficiency in providing security and reliability.
Since AWS Fargate acts as a server less architect for containers, it eliminates the dependency on servers and isolates the running application, thus upholding security.
Key Features:
• Amazon ECS can be used with a third-party Docker image repository.
The only thing that needs to be done here is, a user has to define the repository within his task, and the rest is taken care of by Amazon ECS, wherein it fetches specific images for specified applications.
• Within Amazon ECS, a user can define tasks with the help of JSON templates.
A user can run as many tasks as needed through a single task defined file.
This task definition includes containers being used, repositories being used, and data volumes being used.
Moreover, a user can have efficient control over its applications through such task definitions.
• A user can watch the performance of containers with the help of Amazon CloudWatch.
Alerts can be defined in CloudWatch whenever scaling has to be done to containers.
Price:
Pricing for Amazon Elastic Container Service are divided among three models
• Fargate Launch Type Model
Users are charged on the basis of Vcpu.
The charges have been set as
$0.04048 – $0.01263632 per vCPU per hour and $0.004445 – $0.00138756 per GB per hour.
• EC2 Launch Type Model
Within this model users only have to pay for the AWS resources.
No minimum fee is asked from the users under this plan.
They are charged as per their usage.
• Amazon ECS on AWS Outposts
There is no additional charge since the Amazon ECS control panel is on the cloud and the containers are dependent on Outpost EC2 and work the same as in the cloud.
Also Read: List of 5 Best Open Source Container Management Tools
Red Hat OpenShift is ideal for enterprises that are into the business of multi-cloud deployments.
It has been developed to uphold the productivity of developers.
Within an open shift container architecture, firstly a container cluster is created; after that, these platform clusters’ management is done.
After the management of platform clusters, applications are developed and deployed.
Lastly, scaling is done to manage these applications efficiently.
Key Features:
Some key features of RedHat OpenShift are discussed as under:
• Since it runs both on-premise and cloud platforms, it is ideal for a hybrid approach of application deployments.
• Application on open-shift platforms can efficiently scale across multiple instances and multiple nodes quickly.
• On the same platform developers can use any language or database.
Price:
Red Hat OpenShift has provided users with three plans
• Red Hat OpenShift Individual: Users can use this in the capacity of clouds for free.
• Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise: Users after a 60-day trial have to contact the sales team for pricing.
• Red Hat OpenShift Administrators: Users under this plan need to register themselves with RedHat team for using this plan for free.
Nomad by HashiCorp is a flexible workload orchestrator assisting organizations in deploying applications across multiple cloud platforms.
Nomad provides users with features like batch scheduling, task drivers, auto-scaling, etc.
Within Nomad, users can experience lesser downtime while moving their applications across multi-cloud environments.
Key Features:
Some key features of Nomad are explained below:
• Users can use Nomad on their existing infrastructure easily and can be used on cloud premises with minimal expenses.
• Users can easily orchestrate the application of multiple types.
It supports platforms like Docker, Windows, Java, VMs, etc.
• Users can deploy their applications in any region or on any cloud platform by using Nomad as a single control panel.
Price: Need to contact the sales team for pricing.
Docker Swarm is a container orchestration tool allowing users to easily manage containers that are deployed across multiple machines.
Key Features:
Some key features of Docker Swarm are discussed below:
• Users have the option here to declare the number of tasks they want to run.
To help the task run smoothly, the Swarm manager automatically adds and reduces the duties to maintain the workflow.
• Users can roll back to previous sessions if any delay happens in executing or deploying services among different nodes.
• A Cluster refers to a set of physical or virtual machines that are grouped.
Suppose the Swarm manager node finds any delays or differences in the actual cluster state with users’ expected state.
In that case, it reconciles the differences by auto-filling it with a new cluster.
Price:
Docker has provided users with three plans, these are discussed below
• For Individuals
This plan has been set as free for users.
• Pro Version
This plan is priced at $5 per month with an annual plan for users.
Users will access pro tools that are effective for users with requirements for private builds and private repositories.
• Team
Users can avail of the benefits of these plans for $7 users per month.
For 5 users the price is $7 user per month.
This plan is ideal for teams and organizations with role-based access controls.
Rancher is an open-source container management platform.
With Ranchers, users can deploy Kubernetes on their choice of virtual machines.
Users with Rancher can even clown their existing clusters.
Ranchers assist users by providing them information about their clusters’ help, setting notifications, enabling centralized logging, and much more.
Within Rancher, users have easy access to Kubernetes APIs and CLI.
Key Features:
Some key features of Rancher are discussed below:
• Provides users with features like monitoring, alerting, and diagnostics.
• Within Rancher users are provided with multiple services like deploying applications, scaling applications, logging, etc.
• Rancher assists in automating the process and provides a consistent security policy for every cluster.
Price: Need to contact the sales team for pricing.
Google Kubernetes Engine provides the infrastructure for deploying and scaling containerized applications.
It consists of multiple machines that are grouped and are called a cluster.
Clusters of Google are backed and supported by Kubernetes that provide users with a mechanism to interact with clusters.
Tasks like deployment, setting policies and rolling updates are executed with the help of Kubernetes commands.
Google Kubernetes Engine is based on Kubernetes, which is Google’s open-source container management system.
Key Features:
• Users can reserve an IP range for their clusters wherein these can be mixed up with private network IPs through Google Cloud VPN.
• Assurance of Google security team backed with HIPAA and PCI DSS compliant is provided to users.
• Whenever there is a fresh update regarding Kubernetes, clusters are automatically updated for the same.
Price: A cluster management fee of $0.10 per cluster per hour is charged in GKE.
Cloudify is a multi-cloud edge orchestration platform.
It makes it easy for IT and developers to manage their legacy and cloud environments, from infrastructure to application deployment.
Cloudify connects with any API that allows users to automate their DevOps toolsets and multi-cloud environments through one dashboard.
Cloudify uses human-readable YAML configuration files that act as a blueprint describing the environmental service of the user.
Users can define within this blueprint what tools, networks, clouds are to be deployed.
Key Features
• Being open-source the tool is quite flexible wherein IT departments can use existing toolsets and combine with on-premise legacy services thus bringing all network orchestrations under one automation policy.
• Users need not worry about the support and decommission time that was dependent on excellent orchestration tools.
Under the same investment, users will be able to use cloud-native and edge network services automation.
• Users will be having better control because of the enforcement of the IT policies like BCP, HA, Credential Management, 3rd-party SW Management, SW updates, Certification Management, and more – for total compliance.
Price: Being an open-source tool, it is free to use.
AZK is a lightweight open-source environment orchestration tool.
With the help of Azkfile.js file, developers find it easy to configure and deploy an application with simple tools and different open source technologies.
Key Features
• Since it uses containers instead of virtual machines, AZK is quite faster in performance.
• Developers can reuse the Azkfile.js file for creating new components.
• With the help of Azkfile.js, the user can define its entire environment ranging from installation to its configuration.
Price: Being open-source it is free to use.
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service is a container orchestrating platform.
It provides users with the benefit of deploying applications rapidly capable enough to a mix-up with advanced IBM services like IBM Watson and blockchain.
The Kubernetes technology provides capabilities like simplified cluster management, container security, and isolation policies that further assist users in better deployment consistency.
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service further assists users with intelligent scheduling, self-healing, horizontal scaling, and much more.
Key Features:
• Advanced services
Increase the ability of your applications by integrating them with advanced IBM services such as AI, Watson, and Blockchain.
• Self-healing
Users need not worry about the failure of clusters.
With custom Kubernetes clusters and pre-defined policies, such failed containers are automatically recovered.
• Logging and Monitoring
Users can have visibility into the daily operations of Kubernetes applications, with its advanced features wherein they can even monitor and troubleshoot errors through custom dashboards.
Price
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service has defined their pricing plans as under:
• For Shared Working Nodes
Users here will be able to store their physical resources on the same hardware as IBM customers.
Here users are provided with 2 CPUs, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB SSD
Pricing ranges are
Instances-Hour
USD 0.11 / 1 – 150
USD 0.11 / 151 – 290
USD 0.10 / 291 – 540
USD 0.10 / 540+
• For Dedicated Working Nodes
Here, physical resources will have complete isolation.
Here users are provided with 2 CPUs, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB SSD
Pricing ranges are
Instances-Hour
USD 0.34 / 1 – 150
USD 0.32 / 151 – 290
USD 0.31 / 291 – 540
USD 0.29 / 540+
• For Bare Metal Working Nodes
Here users are provided with 4 cores, 32 GB Memory, 2 TB SATA, 10 Gbps Bonded Network
Users are charged USD 786.00 / Instance / month.
• For Container Service Multizone Load Balancer Working Nodes
Here users are provided with the facilities wherein load balancing in the same region could be done across zones.
Users are charged USD 0.02 / Instance-Hours
• For Network Working Nodes
Users here are provided with a facility of 1 Subnet with 8 Portable Public IPs.
Users are charged USD 16.00 / Item.
Marathon is a production-grade container orchestrating platform for Apache Mesos.
It is ideal for launching long run applications.
Not only applications but Marathon operates framework too.
Key Features
• Higher Availability
If a user is expecting a 100% uptime for applications, Marathon is an ideal platform for the same as it runs as an active/passive cluster.
• Flexible
Supports both Mesos container and Docker.
• Complete REST API
REST APIs can be used for almost any protocol.
REST APIs are dependent on HTTP for installing web APIs.
This offers easy integration and scriptability.
Price: Being open-source it is free to use.
containerd is an industry-standard container runtime with a focus on simplicity, robustness, and portability.
It completely manages the container lifecycle of its host, including monitoring containers, storage, network maps, and execution.
It is designed for larger systems.
Key Features:
Some of the key features of containerd include:
• OCI runtime support, for running containers.
• Namespaces, allowing multiple customers to use the same container without contradicting each other.
• Checkpoint and restoring for checking the status of tasks and restoring containers.
Price: Being open-source, it is available under the Apache 2.0 license.
Conclusion
Orchestrating tools help manage your applications.
However, before going for any tool, it is in the users’ best interest to first understand what their application demands and what might be the complexities that it may develop.
Also Read:
Understanding the Applications of Amazon ECS
Top 7 Kubernetes Use Cases and Examples
Kubernetes vs ECS: An In-Depth Comparison of the Two
