Leverage Software Containers Adoption by Decreasing Cyber Risks and Systemizing Refactoring of Monolithic Applications

Abstract

Containers are one of the deployment solutions that possess attention. It is always compared to virtual machines (VM). Thus, there is a debate about its capabilities. It supports software agility that helps satisfy users’ requirements and shorten deployment time. Many works of literature have discussed the advantages of containers and promoted their role in developing the software industry. However, the actual migration rate in the software market is not as expected compared to the advantages. This research highlights the barriers to adopting containers. Also, it digs in depth into two main barriers to adoption, namely security risks and refactoring of monolithic applications. It aims to study the impact of cyber risks on the applications’ performance. The risks will be studied from a narrow view focusing on sharing resources and a broader view focusing on using malicious container images in project performance. Moreover, it will investigate the requirements and practices of refactoring monolithic applications into a container-based format. This research aims to address the container security risks and provide a systemized refactoring model for monolithic applications. The research is qualitative. The empirical data will be collected from primary studies, surveys, and interviews to explain the container adoption barriers. Providing more understanding of the adoption barriers’ causes will help to avoid them, consequently increasing container adoption.