Starting out with Containerization

As Organizations Big and Small make the plunge to adopt 'Containers' , there are a host of considerations. 

Here are some preliminary readiness check / preparedness which would benefit starting out with the Container Journey

#1 Management commitment to transform to Cloud Native.

 At the heart/center of the scheme of things is the Management commitment to adopt cloud. Whether adopting to the cloud is an augmentation to existing modes or it is a complete movement to the cloud ? There are going to be series of and diverse challenges from true value differentiation , to motivation, to finances feasibility / viability et al. 

In my opinion the scope of the adoption of cloud within the enterprise can be decided however there is no choice in terms of the level of commitment required from management. The commitment has to be absolute. It is important however that the commitment is realistic and pragmatic. To enable which as many considerations as possible are tabled and vetted to make a comprehensive plan. 

#2 A profile of the applications in the enterprise.

It is a good time to take stock of the of the applications in the enterprise in terms of not only Purpose , Internal / External, User Base, User Type etc but also in terms of the Design / Architecture and other attributes such as whether the architecture of the application is Front ending Browser Based, Event Based, Message Oriented, Service Oriented etc, for there are specific considerations for each type of the application when adopting to cloud.

#3 Review of the existing CI / CD processes  

It is imperative to review what is the Organization's CI / CD process which is being followed. Typically these processes may be churning out war based environments for System Testing / UAT / PRE PROD and PROD, this process will have to be adapted for containers. The gaps need to be identified and bridged.

#4 Integration between Applications

The modality of the integration between the applications , whether it is through well defined API calls, messages or In Process calls, sso etc need to be reviewed. The closer the integration architecture to REST based API calls the better intrinsic adaptability of the applications on the cloud. On the flip side an over-abundance of integration points for minor exchanges between web applications can have a significant impact when moving to the container world (of course there are may solutions available with these containers and kubernetes but we will park them for later) 

#5 Financial Review 

The Cloud strategy adopted can have a significant financial consideration for an enterprise, based on the choice of entirely public cloud, private cloud and in-house, like any other project an effective financial review and go ahead would be the need of the enterprise. 

#6 SLA Review 

The SLA commitment of the applications is another item that should be reviewed and needs to be called out, with the adoption of Cloud which essentially means a 24 X 7 X 365 availability, existing SLA standards for various category of applications need to be clear so that movement to Cloud / Container is with realistic considerations. 

#7 Developing knowledge-base for long term Containerization sustenance

Though a wealth of knowledge is available on Containers / Kubernetes etc and talented engineers can adopt to the same in a reasonable time frame, the shift really from an engineers perspective is thinking scale and always available for applications, the other Docker / Kubernetes related information can be acquired with reasonable effort. However this shift in thinking and having SMEs who think on these lines is a key.

#8 Security

Another consideration is the Security Apparatus of the Organization. Of-course Organizations which are complaint to OWASP and other application standards have a head-start, there will be more demands in terms of Container / Image security which is an area in itself, but an assessment of current state of the enterprise is necessary. 

This is a starting-out minimum check-list (of course there can be an elaborate one as well) when Organizations (of varying size, scale and goals) can use at as a reflection point to take on the Container Journey.