Containers have proven to be a core piece of the puzzle in delivering cloud-native solutions. In a Cloud Native Computing Foundation report, more than 90% of organizations said they rely on containers and related technologies for a significant portion, or nearly all, of their cloud-native application development and deployment.
With containers becoming more mainstream, it’s becoming more critical for enterprises to notice. That starts with answering a simple question: what are cloud containers?
An introduction to cloud containers
A cloud container is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries, and settings. Containers solve the works on my machine problem by bundling the application and its dependencies into a single portable unit that runs identically on a developer laptop, a private data center, or any public cloud. Containers are the foundation of modern cloud-native application architecture.
Building and maintaining cloud-native solutions requires a new approach for deploying applications in the cloud , one that is more efficient and lightweight.
Containers are a means of doing just that.
Take the analogy of an actual shipping container, which the name of the technology implies.
Isolation: Just like physical shipping containers keep items separated and protected from the outside environment, cloud containers isolate applications from each other and from the underlying infrastructure. This ensures that each application has its own space, preventing conflicts and enhancing security.
Standardization: Shipping containers have standard sizes and structures, so they can be used globally on any transport system. Similarly, cloud containers are standardized units (like Docker containers , more on this later) that can run on any platform supporting containerization, ensuring consistency and compatibility.
Portability: You can move a shipping container from a ship to a truck to a train without unpacking it. In the same way, containers enable applications to be used across different environments (hardware and operating systems) or between different cloud providers while maintaining its original purpose.
How cloud containers work
Cloud containers work by sharing the host operating system kernel while keeping the application processes isolated from each other through namespaces and control groups. A container engine (Docker, containerd, CRI-O) reads a container image (a tar archive of layered filesystems), runs it as an isolated process, and exposes only the ports the application explicitly declares. Because containers share the kernel they start in milliseconds and use a fraction of the memory of a virtual machine, which makes them practical for microservices architectures where each service runs in its own container.
Containers are the latest virtualization technology where you can package up an application’s code and all its dependencies so it can run reliably in any environment.
They are more lightweight than virtual machines because they don’t require their own OS and have a smaller resource footprint. This makes containers more agile and efficient than virtual machines when deploying applications in a cloud environment.
Containers function through technologies like Docker and Kubernetes. While Docker allows developers to package applications and dependencies into container images, the containers themselves are deployed and managed by orchestration services like Kubernetes, an open-sourced orchestration platform.
Kubernetes automates critical container management tasks to deliver rapid deployments, improved scaling, and dynamic resource allocation.
Together, these technologies make containers a highly efficient, consistent, and resilient way of managing cloud-native applications.
Why enterprises are turning to containers
Enterprises are turning to containers because they solve three problems traditional deployment models do not. First, portability: a container image runs the same way on any host that has a container engine, eliminating environment drift between dev, staging, and production. Second, density: containers share the host OS kernel so you can run far more workloads per machine than with virtual machines. Third, orchestration: tools like Kubernetes turn containers into a fleet, with automated rollouts, rollbacks, health checks, and scaling, so operations teams manage the platform instead of individual servers.
The market for container-related services was valued at $3.77 billion in 2023. By 2030, its value is projected to reach $29.7 billion.
One of the biggest drivers for this market growth is agility. As companies look for ways to be more efficient with their resources and availability, containers enable enterprises to make better use of their resources while also providing a means of avoiding downtime for things like system maintenance and upgrades.
Another driver is scalability. With container technology, organizations can rapidly respond to fluctuating business needs , in other words, as demand for an application increases, additional containers can be dynamically deployed to meet that demand.
This dynamic autoscaling can prevent bottlenecks with critical business operations and flows.
The fusion of internal and external benefits can lead to a quicker time to value as enterprises build modern DevOps practices that strengthen the collaboration between those teams responsible for delivering and managing both the company’s platform and its portfolio.
In this way, containers are part of a larger cloud (or hybrid!) strategy and provide a solid foundation on which to evolve a company’s business.
Leveraging the value of containers
B2B integration and EDI
Since EDI is the lifeblood of many businesses, high availability of the B2B integration applications that process EDI data is critical.
Customers who have trusted Axway technology (some of them for decades) are planning today for a container-based architecture in which Axway software will be deployed as a containerized application.
Axway B2Bi Enterprise Edition gives customers options for platform modernization, including the ability to deploy B2Bi in containers.
In addition, customers staying the course with traditional installations can choose Active/Active Clustering or Multi-Clustering to provide near-zero maintenance downtime, reliable operations, and business continuity.
With the agility and scalability provided by container-based technology, customers can accommodate unexpected volumes in EDI and other B2Bi traffic, or install patches and upgrades with minimal or no downtime. In short, you can avoid scenarios that might negatively impact your SLAs.
MFT
Similar benefits play out in the context of managed file transfer (MFT). Cloud containers enable deployment based on your load and allow you to adjust to support spikes on demand quickly.
The new architecture for Axway Secure Transport, now in Beta release, delivers functions similar to the classic deployment model while leveraging the benefits of containerization.
In addition, as stronger security of B2B infrastructures becomes paramount in ensuring better resilience, container-based architectures facilitate mandatory security upgrades and patches.
For both solutions, tools and capabilities within a cloud-native deployment model ensure you can run at minimum or maximum capacity with peace of mind.
Cloud container FAQs
What are containers in cloud computing? Containers in cloud computing are lightweight, standalone, executable software packages that bundle an application with its dependencies and run identically across any cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) or private data center. They are the foundation of cloud containerization.
What is container technology in cloud computing? Container technology in cloud computing is the runtime layer (Docker, containerd, CRI-O) that packages and isolates applications using namespaces and control groups, sharing the host operating system kernel for efficiency. Container architecture in cloud computing layers an orchestrator (most often Kubernetes) on top to schedule, scale, and heal the containers across a fleet.
What are examples of containers in cloud and what cloud container services exist? Examples of containers in cloud include long-running web services, batch jobs, machine-learning inference workers, and event-driven functions. The major cloud container services are AWS ECS and EKS, Azure AKS and Container Apps, Google Cloud GKE and Cloud Run, plus managed offerings from DigitalOcean, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud.
The power of container technology
Containers and Kubernetes, the default pairing
Containers solve the packaging problem. Kubernetes solves the orchestration problem: scheduling containers across a fleet of machines, restarting failed ones, scaling them up and down, and giving developers a declarative API to describe what they want running.
- Scheduling. Kubernetes places containers on nodes that have the resources they need, respecting affinity rules and taints.
- Self-healing. If a container or node fails, Kubernetes restarts the container or moves it to another node automatically.
- Scaling. Horizontal pod autoscaling adds or removes container replicas based on CPU, memory, or custom metrics.
- Rollouts and rollbacks. Declarative deployments give you blue/green and canary patterns out of the box.
- Service discovery and load balancing. Containers register with a cluster DNS and get load-balanced automatically.
Together, containers plus Kubernetes are the de facto runtime for cloud-native applications in 2026, supported by every major cloud (EKS, AKS, GKE) and by every major API management platform including Amplify Fusion, which runs container-natively and federates governance across Kubernetes-hosted API gateways.
Containers vs virtual machines vs serverless
Three deployment models dominate cloud-native architecture. Each makes a different trade-off between isolation, startup time, and operational overhead.
| Model | Isolation level | Startup time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual machine | Full OS isolation per VM | Tens of seconds to minutes | Legacy workloads, regulatory isolation requirements, full OS control |
| Container | Process isolation, shared kernel | Milliseconds | Microservices, cloud-native apps, CI/CD pipelines, dev/prod parity |
| Serverless function | Function isolation, fully managed runtime | Cold start hundreds of ms, warm sub-ms | Event-driven workloads, bursty traffic, glue code, no persistent state |
Most modern enterprise estates run all three: containers for the bulk of microservices, VMs for legacy workloads, and serverless for event handlers and integrations.
Containers offer a consistent and efficient way to develop, deploy, and manage applications across your B2B ecosystem.
It’s important to mention that adopting containers comes with its own set of challenges, such as new skills and resources to support and manage them (unless you opt for a fully managed solution, of course), but the overall benefits of increased availability and business agility are too compelling to ignore.
Containers may be a relatively new technology, but the value they enable for enterprises will one day be as ubiquitous as cloud computing itself.
They provide businesses with a means of achieving NZDM (near zero downtime maintenance) more easily than ever before so that activities like software upgrades and fixes don’t interrupt critical business operations.
Axway is embracing containers.
With the rollout of native cloud capabilities and support for container deployments for B2B Integration and MFT, we’re taking just one more step forward in modernizing our platforms to meet the needs of customers.
Unlock the power of containers with Axway B2Bi Enterprise Edition.