Resource Management and Scalability in Container Orchestration Platforms: A Comparative Study

The paper compares resource management and scalability of popular container orchestration platforms in Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Microsoft Container Service (MCS), and Apache Mesos. With the increasing adoption of microservices and cloud-native applications, now is a good time to get a grip on how to orchestrate and what orchestrators to use. Each platform is analysed for how it employs CPU, memory, storage and network resources, and how well they can scale with different workloads. Key findings include that Kubernetes and AKS are greatly suited towards complex environments through their efficient resource allocation and automated scaling, whereas Docker Swarm is the simplest app deployment option for smaller applications. This research offers key insights to organisations on how to strategically choose the right platform to fulfil a special need, and it shows where there are new avenues to explore, in particular, for the creative combination of evolving technologies at play in the container orchestration ecosystem.