An analysis of containers and clusters for edge cloud architectures

As shown by IoT (Internet of Things) and network integration in the context of edge cloud and fog computing, cloud technology is evolving toward greater dispersion across multi-clouds and the incorporation of different devices. In general, lightweight virtualization solutions are useful for this architectural context, which includes smaller, but still virtualized devices to host application and platform services, as well as the logistics needed to operate them. Containerization is being considered as a lightweight virtualization option at the moment. Containers are particularly important for platform issues usually addressed by Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) clouds, such as application packaging and orchestration, in addition to having space and flexibility advantages over conventional virtual machines in the cloud. Application and service orchestration may assist manage and orchestrate applications in the edge cloud environment by using containers as an application packaging method. We look at edge cloud needs and examine the appropriateness of container and cluster technologies for facilitating applications via distributed multi-cloud platforms made up of a variety of networked nodes ranging from data centers to tiny devices, which we refer to as edge cloud.