New Ideas & Concepts

As often in IT, great “new” ideas and concepts are recycled or borrowed from others. So it happened that the shipping industry was a big inspiration for optimizing IT infrastructure operations more than two decades ago.

The concept of a container to standardize the packing of goods, make them universal to handle and transport on different means of transportation to improve efficiency and reduce the transportation costs was a real success story for the transportation industry.

Replication of success is always desirable and sparked a new way of operating IT infrastructures indifferent of application on development, testing, or production.

Container Technology in the shipping industry Instead of thinking up a separate way of shipping for each product, placing the goods in steel containers designed for pickup by the crane on the dock and fit into the ship is a more efficient way to do transport at scale.

A Container Ship

In streamlining the processes and the loading of the goods in standardized containers, the goods can be moved as one unit in a space-saving and cost-effective manner.

Container Technology in the IT industry Computer container technology in the IT industry addresses similar challenges to steel containers in the shipping industry:

increase compatibility
reduce dependencies
develop, deploy and operate easier

Docker

In streamlining the processes and the apps’ packaging in containers, deploying and running apps as one unit become a more performant and resource-effective process.

Last modified July 15, 2025: Fix: Update (db646b6b)