Microservices, which allow an application to be comprised of many independently operating and scalable components, have become a common service paradigm. The ability to construct an application by provisioning these interoperating components has various advantages, including the isolation and independent development of tools such as key-value stores, authentication, logging, and many others.
Containers are one type of system infrastructure that is commonly used to support microservices. With container management systems like Docker and orchestration systems like Kubernetes to control applications and dynamically provision their resources, cloud services can be extremely scalable, reliable, and reactive. However, other systems beyond containers can be used to support microservices, and many applications others than microservices benefit from containerization.
This special issue of IEEE Internet Computing focuses on microservices and containers. Articles that emphasize one but not the other are in scope, but those that consider both of these important technologies will receive extra consideration. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following, but always in the context of the theme of the issue. (For example, a paper about Internet of Things but not microservices or containers would be in scope for IC in general, but out of scope for the special issue.)
- Cloud, Edge, and Fog computing
- Container platforms, such as Docker
- Containers versus Virtual Machines
- Embedded systems
- Internet of Things
- Migration
- Network Function Virtualization
- New advances, such as new containerization platforms
- Orchestration, such as Kubernetes
- Performance and Scalability
- Preconfigured services
- Security and Privacy
- Serverless computing
- Software delivery
- System management
- Testing