The RackN team has started designing reference architectures for containers on metal (discussed on TheNewStack.io) with the hope of finding hardware design that is cost and performance optimized for containers instead of simply repurposing premium virtualized cloud infrastructure.  That discussion turned up something unexpected…

That post generated a twitter thread that surfaced Hyper.sh and ClearLinux as hardware enabled (Intel VT-x) alternatives to containers.

This container alternative likely escapes notice of many because it requires hardware capabilities that are not/partially exposed inside cloud virtual machines; however, it could be a very compelling story for operators looking for containers on metal.

Here’s my basic understanding: these technologies offer container-like light-weight & elastic behavior with the isolation provided by virtual machines.  This is possible because they use CPU capabilities to isolate environments.

7/3 Update: Feedback about this post has largely been “making it easier for VMs to run docker automatically is not interesting.”  What’s your take on it?