Replacing Virtual Machines and Hypervisors with Container Solutions

Sammanfattning: We live in a world that is constantly evolving where new technologies and innovations are being introduced. This progress partly results in developing new technologies and also in the improvement of the current ones. Docker containers are a virtualization method that is one of these new technologies that has become a hot topic around the world as it is said to be a better alternative to today's current virtual machines. One of the aspects that has contributed to this statement is the difference from virtual machines where containers isolate processes from each other and not the entire operating system. The company Saab AB wants to be at the forefront of today's technology and is interested in investigating the possibilities with container technology. The purpose with this thesis work is partly to investigate whether the container solution is in fact an alternative to traditional VMs and what differences there are between these methods. This will be done with the help of an in-depth literature study of comperative studies between containers and VMs. The results of the comparative studies showed that containers are in fact a better alternative than VMs in certain aspects such as performance and scalability and are worthy for the company. Thus, in the second part of this thesis work, a proof of concept implementation was made, by recreating a part of the company’s subsystem TactiCall into containers, to ensure that this transition is possible for the concrete use-case and that the container solution works as intended. This task has succeeded in highlighting the benefits of containers and showing through a proof of concept that there is an opportunity for the company to transition from VMs into containers.