Linux container security and certification concerns remain

While container adoption is likely to surge in the next few years, concerns around security, certification and adequate skills remain, according to Red Hat.

A survey of more than 383 global IT decision makers and professionals shows strong enterprise plans for container deployments, with 67 percent of respondents planning production roll-outs over the next two years. Survey respondents indicate that they plan to use container-based applications in cloud roles (50 percent) and as vehicles for web and e-commerce software (56 percent).

Application development enhancements dominated as the top benefits of containers, with faster application deployment and reduced deployment effort topping the list at 60 percent each. 44 percent of respondents view containers as a means to consolidate existing servers.

Virtual machines are also the preferred deployment method, with 83 percent of respondents planning to deploy containerized application implementations on top of virtual environments, demonstrating that organizations recognize the benefits of using containers and virtualization together, rather than one or the other.

Despite strong enterprise adoption plans for containers, the survey results highlighted a number of lingering challenges, including:

• Security and a lack of certification/image provenance (60 percent of respondents)
• Integration with existing development tools and processes (58 percent)
• Management (55 percent)
• Existing knowledge and skills (54 percent).

Open source remains the dominant platform in the container world, with more than 95 percent of respondents planning container development on the Linux operating system. Internal champions remain at the grassroots (39 percent) and middle management (36 percent) levels, with upper management and CIO directives playing limited roles in containerized application adoption within the enterprise, according to survey respondents.

Tim Yeaton, senior vice president, Infrastructure Business, Red Hat, said: “Ultimately, containers represent a significant paradigm shift for enterprise application development and deployment, whether used to modernize existing applications to build net new web or cloud-native workloads, or enable DevOps. Large scale enterprise adoption can be accelerated by addressing enterprises’ concerns about security, management, and developing the right skills, and we stand ready to help organizations enter this new world of IT as an experienced and reliable partner.”