Automated containerization for every application in the estate
Turn services, including the ones written long before anyone said "container", into hardened, consistent OCI images that meet one standard across the organisation.
What is Containerization?
DevOpsArk containerization is the capability that converts applications into standardised, hardened OCI container images automatically, applying one organisation-wide base image, user and hardening policy.
What Containerization is for
The conditions this module removes. If none of these are familiar, you probably do not need it yet.
- Half the estate is containerised to a modern standard and half is not, so every platform change has to be made twice.
- Legacy applications run on virtual machines because nobody has time to work out their runtime dependencies.
- Container standards exist in a wiki page rather than in anything that enforces them.
- Images run as root because that was the fastest way to make them start, and nobody went back.
- There is no single answer to "which base images are we running in production right now".
Containerization inspects an application (its manifests, its runtime, and where available its running process on an existing server), and produces an image definition that satisfies the organisation-wide container policy: an approved base image, a non-root user, a read-only root filesystem where the application allows it, explicit ports and health endpoints, and no build tooling in the final layer. For services already running on virtual machines, DevOpsArk can profile the process to capture the libraries, environment and file paths it actually depends on, which is usually the part that stalls a migration. The output is an image plus the definition that produced it, both of which are versioned and comparable across every service you run.
What Containerization does
The 6 capabilities that make up Containerization.
Runtime dependency profiling
Observes a running process on an existing server to capture the libraries, paths and environment it genuinely needs, rather than guessing from documentation.
Policy-enforced hardening
Non-root user, dropped capabilities, read-only root filesystem and no shell in the final layer, applied as organisation policy rather than per-team convention.
Approved base image catalogue
One curated set of base images per language, patched centrally, with an inventory of which service uses which.
Image size budgets
Set a size budget per service class and get a warning when an image crosses it, before slow pulls start affecting rollouts.
Health and readiness wiring
Liveness, readiness and startup probes are derived from the application and written into the deployment manifest, not left blank.
SBOM per image
A software bill of materials is produced for every image so dependency questions are answered from an index instead of a rescan.
How Containerization fits together
Outcomes
- One container standard applies to the whole estate, including services that predate it.
- Legacy migrations stop stalling on unknown runtime dependencies.
- Root containers disappear from production because the platform will not produce one.
- Base image patching becomes a single central operation with a known blast radius.
- Image inventory questions are answered from data rather than from a spreadsheet.
Using Containerization, step by step
The path from connecting a source to getting value, in the order it happens.
- 1Select the application
Choose a repository, or point DevOpsArk at a service already running on a managed server.
- 2Profile dependencies
Capture the runtime, libraries, paths and environment the application actually uses.
- 3Apply container policy
Base image, user, capabilities and filesystem mode are set from organisation policy.
- 4Build and verify
The image is built, hardening is checked, size is measured against budget and an SBOM is produced.
- 5Publish
The image is pushed by digest and registered in the image inventory.
Where teams apply Containerization
Migrate virtual machines to containers
Profile what a legacy service actually depends on, generate the image, and move it onto Kubernetes without a rewrite.
Eliminate root containers
Enforce non-root and dropped capabilities at image build so the policy cannot be bypassed by a team in a hurry.
Shrink pull times
Set size budgets per service class and cut the cold-start penalty on every autoscaling event.
Answer base image questions on demand
Produce the list of services running an affected base image within minutes of an advisory being published.
What Containerization works with
Named integrations link to their own page. The rest are supported runtimes and formats.
Containerization: frequently asked questions
The 8 questions teams ask most often before adopting Containerization.
Automated containerization is the process of turning an application into a container image without a person hand-writing the image definition. The platform detects the runtime, resolves dependencies, applies a hardening standard and produces both the image and the definition that built it.
Yes. For a service already running on a virtual machine, DevOpsArk can profile the live process to capture the libraries, file paths and environment variables it depends on. That profile is usually the missing piece that stalls legacy container migrations.
Usually not. Configuration typically moves to environment variables or mounted secrets, and logs are redirected to stdout, but the application itself is normally unmodified.
Hardening rules (non-root user, dropped Linux capabilities, read-only root filesystem, no shell in the final layer) are organisation policy applied at build time. An image that violates policy is not produced.
An OCI image is a container image built to the Open Container Initiative specification, which is the format Docker, containerd, Podman and Kubernetes all understand. DevOpsArk produces OCI images, so they run anywhere that standard is supported.
Every build is recorded against its base image, so the image inventory answers the question directly. When an advisory lands, you get the affected service list immediately rather than after a rescan.
Yes. The output is a standard OCI image, so any OCI-compatible runtime can run it. Build execution itself uses BuildKit.
Configuration is externalised: environment variables and mounted secrets replace files baked into the image, so the same image runs unchanged in every environment.
See Containerization against your own environment
A 30-minute walkthrough with a platform engineer, not a sales deck. Bring a cluster and a problem.