This document discusses container and platform adoption based on surveys from 451 Research. It finds that: 1) Container adoption is growing rapidly in enterprises, especially among OpenStack users, with many planning pilots or initial production use. 2) While container workloads are currently led by infrastructure applications, adoption is expected to grow across multiple venues like public and private clouds. 3) There is no clear consensus yet on whether containers will replace VMs or run alongside them, as approaches differ between organizations with and without OpenStack. 4) While opinionated platforms dominate currently, unopinionated container orchestration tools are expected to see increased adoption as the container model matures.

1. The OpenStack Pulse:
Containers and Platforms
Donnie Berkholz, Ph.D.
Research Director — Development, DevOps, & IT Ops
Excerpt from “The OpenStack Pulse: Unbiased research on enterprise demand, TCO, and market size”
with Al Sadowski, OpenStack summit, Austin TX, April 2016

2. Developers love Docker
2

3. Docker is not just a toy
3
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud
31.5%
10.2%
8.4%
9.4%
4.7%
35.8%
56.1%
10.7%
3.9%
4.2%
2.1%
22.9%
Discovery and Evaluation
Running Trials/Pilot Projects
In Test and Development Environment
Initial Implementation of Production
Applications
Broad Implementation of Production
Applications
No Plans
Q3 2015 (n = 991) Q1 2015 (n = 960)
Prod/test inQ32015:
22.5%}of cloud-using orgs

4. Container adoption will grow in many venues
4
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud, Q3 2015
31.5%
10.2%
8.4%
39.8%
31.4%
28.8%
On-Premises Private Cloud
Hosted Private Cloud
Public Cloud
2015 (n = 171) 2017 (n = 430)

5. Container workloads: led by infrastructure
5
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud, Q3 2015
42.5%
31.0%
24.8%
22.1%
21.2%
Application Development
Engineering/R&D/Technical Computing
Web (excluding search)
Line of Business (LOB) Applications
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Mobility
Management
n = 113

6. Containers in the OpenStack universe
6
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Software-Defined Infrastructure, Q4 2015
10.1%
20.5%
3.8%
5.5%
7.0%
56.2%
55.0%
2.3%
2.5%
5.0%
1.3%
15.0%
In-Use (Not Including Pilots)
In Pilot/Proof of Concept
Planning to Implement In the Next 6 Months
Planning to Implement In the Next 12 Months
Planning to Implement In the Next 24 Months
Not In Plan
Enterprises w/o OpenStack (n = 473) Enterprises w/ OpenStack (n = 80)

7. Containers vs VMs: no clear approach
7
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Software-Defined Infrastructure, Q4 2015
9.3%
12.2%
7.2%
23.1%
32.7%
23.1%
Containers Run Separately from VMs
Containers Run On Top Of VMs
Containers Are Replacing VMs
Enterprises w/o OpenStack (n = 406) Enterprises w/ OpenStack (n = 52)

8. From primitives to platforms
8
ServerlessPaaSCaaS
Container
orchestration
IaaS /
Containers
OpinionatedFlexible

9. Container orchestration is limited (∴ adoption immature)
9
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud, Q3 2015
9.4%
36.1%
39.9%
14.6%
Currently use
Considering using in the next two years
Not familiar with these tools
Have no plans to use in the next two years
n = 534

10. Private PaaS popular in OpenStack-using enterprises
10
451 Research, Voice of the Enterprise: Software-Defined Infrastructure, Q4 2015
28.8%
10.6%
3.1%
5.1%
7.3%
45.2%
53.1%
12.3%
3.7%
3.7%
2.5%
24.7%
In-Use (Not Including Pilots)
In Pilot/Proof of Concept
Planning to Implement In the Next 6 Months
Planning to Implement In the Next 12
Months
Planning to Implement In the Next 24
Months
Not In Plan
Enterprises w/o OpenStack (n = 550) Enterprises w/ OpenStack (n = 81)

11. Wrap-up
• Containers are growing quickly in the enterprise, with particularly strong
adoption among OpenStack adopters
• Opinionated platforms (i.e. PaaS) dominate today, but we expect
unopinionated container orchestration to increase
11

12. 12
Questions? Feel free to reach out.
Donnie Berkholz
Twitter: @dberkholz
donnie.berkholz@451research.com