Many software companies are mandating that their latest versions must run in a container environment, forcing organisations to explore their options for container modernisation, given most existing hypervisor platforms (e.g. VMware) are only capable of supporting virtual machines and not containers.
This shift is also being driven by the demands by organisations for more robust, agile, and scalable environments – and a broader move toward modern IT practices such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD pipelines.
While initially appearing to add complexity, containerisation offers organisations a more efficient way to deliver and manage critical workloads. With rapid deployment, consistent performance, and built-in seamless scalability, it also represents a far more agile environment, allowing simpler workload migration between private and public hybrid cloud environments as requirements change over time.
And uptake is only increasing. According to Business Research Insights (1), the global market is continuing to grow at a significant rate (the global container technology market was valued at USD$0.85 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD$4.48 billion by 2033).
As with any major technology shift, there are clear benefits to be gained, but, just as importantly, risks and challenges to consider and navigate when integrating containers into your production IT operations.
What is containerisation?
Containerisation is a software deployment method that bundles an application with all the code, libraries, and dependencies it requires (to run) as a single, executable package. This ensures the application can run reliably across different infrastructure environments.
In hybrid cloud environments, containers play a crucial role in ensuring and maintaining workload portability and performance across distributed infrastructures, whether on-premises or in the public cloud. They also play a key role in both application modernisation and infrastructure modernisation, enabling workloads to move seamlessly between environments.
To manage these types of workloads at scale, organisations often rely on orchestration platforms, with Kubernetes (K8s) being the most widely adopted. Kubernetes enables automated deployment, scaling, and operations, helping teams optimise resources while maintaining availability.
While many teams are familiar with terms like ‘Kubernetes,’ ‘containers,’ and ‘workloads,’ they may not have a full understanding of how these components work together to deliver the benefits organisations are striving for. That’s often because container modernisation marks a significant shift from a traditional IT operations model to a DevOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) model – concepts that are often new or not widely understood within organisations today.
Challenges of managing complex IT operations
As more organisations pursue container modernisation to benefit from hybrid cloud strategies and broader infrastructure modernisation efforts, they’re often encountering a range of operational and architectural challenges. Especially when scaling from simple environments to production-ready systems.
While it can seem relatively easy to get workloads running in an isolated test environment, ensuring all necessary checks, controls, and governance required for production systems brings a whole new – and different – level of complexity.
Take networking for instance. While typically straightforward in traditional environments, it behaves very differently in modernised environments and can lead to a range of unexpected issues and outcomes, including downtime and performance degradation.
Other key challenges include:
- Complexity – Teams often face an overwhelming number of tools to choose from, many of which deliver only elements of the required outcome. Evaluating, integrating, and maintaining each new tool adds additional overheads, slowing down the delivery process.
- Security, compliance, and governance – Without a consistent (and well-understood) operational model, it’s difficult to enforce access control, maintain audit trails, export appropriate logs, or meet policy requirements across a hybrid infrastructure.
- Disaster recovery and data protection – Ensuring resilience and continuity in distributed environments adds further complexity to backup, failover, and recovery planning and execution.
- Legacy integration – Many legacy systems and workloads weren’t built for modern architectures. Compatibility issues can delay deployments and introduce unexpected additional costs.
- Skills gaps and resource constraints – Teams may be unfamiliar with orchestration platforms or IaC tools, leading to long ramp-up times, inefficiencies, and delayed project timelines. Plus, hiring or upskilling for this degree of change isn’t always feasible.
These challenges are why many organisations benefit from working with experienced partners who specialise in container modernisation implementations and who can also provide a fully managed container environment – eliminating these challenges and risks.
Why make the shift to container modernisation?
Beyond the technical benefits, containers help to deliver real business value – especially for organisations operating in demanding and complex, hybrid or cloud environments.
- Portability – Containers allow you to run applications consistently across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure, making it easier to relocate workloads as needed.
- Faster deployments – Standardised packaging through pipelines enables quicker builds, testing, and releases, helping teams accelerate
- Cost reduction – Containers are lightweight and efficient, consuming fewer than standard virtual machines – particularly in the cloud – which can lead to overall reductions in infrastructure spend.
- High performance – For applications with critical uptime or performance requirements, containers offer a more resilient and scalable way to run critical workloads.
- Cloud migration support – Containers work well with re-platforming and re-architecting efforts, making them a strong fit for businesses modernising legacy applications and improving efficiency in cloud environments.
- Flexibility and agility – Whether scaling up or moving workloads between environments, containers give teams greater control over how and where applications run.
When done right, containerisation simplifies operations, improves efficiency, and supports broader application and infrastructure modernisation goals – all without locking you into a specific platform or vendor.
Modernise with confidence
Adopting containers across hybrid environments is a strategic step – but it requires more than just the right tools. Advent One delivers a reliable container modernisation solution, using a robust, stress-tested model, engineered to reduce risk, while adapting to your needs and accelerating outcomes.
Supporting both containers and virtual machines across on-premises, cloud, and edge environments, Advent One Managed Container Services give you the flexibility to move workloads where they deliver the most value – without starting from square one. It’s a reliable, hardware-agnostic solution aligned with modern IT needs.
As the development of new skills can take time, Advent One supports your container modernisation journey with ongoing monitoring, support, back-up, and remediation of issues that can arise over time – giving your team the opportunity to develop skills without the risk of impacting core production systems.
Start your modernisation journey with a solution that’s already built to scale. Get in touch today.
(1) https://www.businessresearchinsights.com/market-reports/container-technology-market-106710