There’s a general consensus that containers are poised to become the dominant artifact that will be employed to run software on Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. The devil, in terms of achieving that goal any time soon, is as always in the details.
Understanding Containers
Containers enable developers to encapsulate software in a lightweight artifact that can run anywhere. That’s crucial because IoT environments are made up of a wide range of hardware that run a wide variety of operating systems. Attempting to package software in a unique way for each platform is cost prohibitive.
However, getting containers to run on an IoT platform is one thing, managing fleets of IoT platforms loaded with containerized applications is quite another. At the most basic level, IT teams need to appreciate the simple fact that IoT platforms come in all shapes and sizes ranging from a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform deployed at the network edge to a device that requires a speci