Containerization (container software)

What is containerization

Containerization is a "lightweight" form of virtualization at the operating system level that allows you to run an application and system libraries in an isolated area, a "container," each of which contains all the components necessary to launch the application, does not depend on the architecture of the server system and interacts with the OS using standard interfaces. In this, software containers are similar to transport containers - it doesn't matter what is "inside" the container, the main thing is that it has standard interfaces (in the real world - one of the standard sizes)^[1]

What's the difference between containers and virtual machines

Containers are "lighter" and compact than traditional virtual machines, they start very quickly, use a common operating system. They can be created much faster than virtual machine instances. Each container is essentially a separate microservice, its update does not require synchronization with other containers, and encapsulation in the container of everything necessary to launch the application facilitates portability from one environment to another.

Market estimates

2024

The volume of the Russian software market for containerization grew by 66% over the year and reached 3 billion rubles

At the end of 2024, the costs on the Russian market software for containerization reached 3 billion. rubles For comparison, a year earlier, expenses were estimated at 1.8 billion rubles. Thus, an increase of 66% was recorded, as stated in the review iKS-Consulting published at the end of August 2025.

The sector demonstrates stable positive dynamics: for example, in 2021 its volume amounted to 1.4 billion rubles, and in 2022 - 1.6 billion rubles. At the same time, in the conditions of the formed geopolitical situation, Russian suppliers are actively strengthening their positions. If in 2021 their share was 32.8%, or 0.5 billion rubles, then in 2024 it reached 78.3%, or 2.4 billion rubles.

The study says that until 2021, the market for software solutions for containerization in Russia was relatively small and grew moderately with an average annual rate of no more than 13%. Most of the virtualization projects were classic hypervisors. The situation began to change by the beginning of 2022 against the background of legislative initiatives on the mandatory transfer of systems in the field of critical information infrastructure (CII) to domestic solutions. This process accelerated significantly after many foreign software developers left Russia. Organizations that had previously purchased foreign products were left without any support and the ability to transparently receive updates, which in turn caused the rapid moral obsolescence of legacy decisions and provoked serious risks to business.

As a result of active import substitution, which has become an urgent need for many industries, by 2024-2025 the containerization software market was structurally transformed under the influence of geopolitical factors and import substitution policies, as well as demand from business and government agencies, - notes iKS-Consulting.

In 2024, Flant became the largest domestic player in the software market for containerization, receiving 50% of the total revenue of Russian suppliers of such products, or about 1.2 billion rubles. In second place is "Basis," the result of which was 20%. Closes the top three "Laboratory Numerator" with a share of 9%. Next comes Orion soft with 8%. The total contribution of all other Russian developers is 13%.

According to iKS-Consulting analysts, in the future, the CAGR in the area under consideration will be 25.9%. In 2025, the volume of the industry is expected to reach 4 billion rubles, and by 2031 it will increase to 15.2 billion rubles. The main driver of the market will continue to be Russian solutions for containerization. At the same time, competition will increase, but consolidation will lead to the emergence of 3-4 dominant producers with wide ecosystems. Deliveries of software and hardware solutions by foreign developers, according to the authors of the report, will remain, but their share in the total market of the Russian Federation will be reduced to the minimum level.

The study also says that containerization will be in demand in telecom equipment, cars (autonomous systems), smart devices and other areas where rapid software updates on many nodes are needed. As hybrid clouds and distributed clusters evolve, more workloads will move from local servers to the cloud. The trend towards the integration of containers with serverless computing and hardware acceleration based on GPUs will increase: this model allows you to run machine learning and data processing loads without complex manual configuration.^[2]

Sales of solutions for containerization in Russia for the year increased by 81% and reached 4.31 billion rubles

At the end of 2024, the volume of the Russian market for solutions for containerization reached 4.31 billion rubles. For comparison, a year earlier, sales of such software were estimated at 2.38 billion rubles. Thus, an increase of about 81% was recorded, as stated in the Strategy Partners review, published on June 2, 2025.

Containerization is a method by which program code is packed into a single executable file along with libraries and dependencies to ensure that it runs correctly. Such files are called containers. The technology provides application stability, portability, and scalability while minimizing compatibility issues and simplifying the development process. Containers can significantly reduce deployment time, improve system reliability, and ensure the same application behavior across environments.

The industry under consideration demonstrates rapid development against the background of active import substitution. The study says that in 2021 the market volume was 1.81 billion rubles. At the same time, the solutions of domestic suppliers accounted for 27% of total sales, or 485 million rubles, while foreign players controlled 73% of the sector, or 1.33 billion rubles. In subsequent years, due to the emerging geopolitical situation, the share of Russian vendors began to increase rapidly: in 2022 it reached 55%, and in 2023 - 61%. In 2024, Russian suppliers received 70% of the total revenue, or 3.01 billion rubles. Foreign companies accounted for the remaining 30% - 1.3 billion rubles.

The study notes that the industry has a high growth potential, but the key condition for increasing the revenue of Russian vendors is to maintain the trend towards the transition of consumers in the state (B2G/B2G +) and corporate (B2B/Enterprise) segments from their own products (in-house) and open-source solutions to market platforms. Analysts emphasize that in the future, containerization will become the main technology used for microservices, and therefore the need for appropriate products will increase.

In 2023-2024, the segment of solutions for containerization grew rapidly. In 2025-2026, the high growth rate of the market will continue. In addition to vendors and integrators, there are many companies with in-house teams that actively use containerization for their needs, the Strategy Partners review said.

The key players in the market under consideration are named "Flant" (Deckhouse Kubernetes Platform), "Laboratory Numerator" ("Steering Wheel"), "Astra Group" ("Botsman Platform"), "Basis" (Basic Digital Energy), Orion soft (Nova), as well as Red Hat (OpenShift). Their total share at the end of 2024 was about 66%.

The authors of the study believe that in 2025-2026, interest in more resource-intensive in-house developments will decrease due to the expected cuts in budgets for the development of IT infrastructure among consumers. At the same time, as noted, the requirements of the Ministry of Digital Development in terms of the mandatory use of products included in the Register of Russian Software will be implemented instead of in-house development: this will further stimulate revenue growth of Russian market leaders.

Strategy Partners analysts believe that in the future, the CAGR in the sector under consideration will be 23%. Thus, by 2030, costs may increase to 14.58 billion rubles.^[3]

2019

The size of the global market for commercial container software will grow in 2018-2023. on average by 30% annually, exceeding $1.6 billion by the end of the period - this forecast is given in the Technology Multi-Tenant Server Software Market Tracker of IHS Markit analysts. Red Hat leads with 44% market share.

Gartner analysts also forecast strong revenue growth from global container management software and services, though more modest in estimates. They believe that the revenue of the corresponding market segment in 2020-2024. will grow from $465.8 million to $944 million.

The most popular containerization tools from cloud service providers, they, according to IHS Markit, use container technologies on more than a third of their servers. For comparison, telecommunications companies and the corporate sector use container software for about 8% of multi-tenant servers (that is, allocated for the service of users from different organizations).

This lag in deployment is due to the complexity of managing the container orchestration facilities. Enterprises and telecommunications companies need more advanced control automation tools to widely implement containerization.

Principal Actors

The sphere of containerization is developing rapidly, but two "de facto" standards have already appeared in it. It is a Docker container format and Kubernetes container orchestration software.

Docker is open source software for automating deployment and application management in containerization environments. It divides the OS core into containers that operate as separate processes. Initially, this product was developed by the company of the same name, which also has its own Docker Swarm orchestration platform. However, the latter is increasingly inferior to Kubernetes.

Kubernetes is open source software for automating deployment, scaling of containerized applications. As a set of services, it implements a container cluster and its orchestration. It was originally created by Google.

According to a study by StackRox, which studied the dynamics of container adoption in 2018-2020. Kubernetes dominates the market: 86% of respondents use it to orchestrate containers.

Container hacking

2024: There is a flurry of cyber attacks on container environments in the world. How they are hacked

There is a flurry of cyber attacks on container environments in the world. TAdviser was informed about how they were hacked at Kaspersky Lab in June 2024.

According to a study in June 2024, in 34% of cases, errors in configurations are the reasons for successful cyber attacks on container environments. In second place in terms of prevalence are shortcomings in the process of ensuring security in runtime, that is, when the program is already launched (32%). On the third - late detection of malware in containers (32%).

𝓲

Фото: Unsplash

Kaspersky Lab conducted a survey on various aspects of cybersecurity, including the protection of container environments, among large organizations with a distributed network of divisions around the world. According to the study, the majority (85%) of geographically distributed companies in the world that use container development methods have encountered cyber incidents over the past 12 months. More than a third of respondents noted that this led to the leakage of confidential data (39%), financial losses (38%) and a decrease in customer confidence (34%).

It is noted that the vast majority of organizations (94%) have their own IT development teams, while 79% of them use container development methods.

The results of the study once again emphasize that cyber incidents related to container development and Kubernetes pose a serious threat to business and how important it is to implement reliable security measures to protect against data breaches and other cyber threats in hybrid cloud and container environments, says Timofey Titkov, head of cloud and network security product development at Kaspersky Lab. - Taking into account the growing level of digitalization, it is important for organizations to be proactive and implement comprehensive security solutions in order to continuously reduce risks and maintain customer confidence.

Notes