Private Cloud and PaaS, Run for the Hills

Originally published in The New Stack Update.

The headline is a bit sarcastic, but the concern is real. If you use containers, then you’re likely to believe container orchestrators are a viable alternative to your current private cloud or PaaS platform. According to a survey of container users (by 451 Research, on behalf of CoreOS), 80 percent of container users think “Kubernetes or other container management or orchestration platforms are sufficient to replace” PaaS, and 75 percent say the same about private cloud. No wonder companies like Red Hat have relabeled PaaS offerings like OpenShift as container management solutions.

Reality check: While private cloud growth is decelerating, it’s not going away. Containers are facing disruption from serverless. While orchestrators may be “sufficient,” many companies will find no reason to change what is working. In fact, if they do make a change, companies may opt for platforms where developers can choose to deploy apps to either VMS, containers or a function.