Databases, containers, and Clarke's first law

A blog post by a (self-admitted) beginner engineer rants about databases inside of containers. The author lays out the case against using databases inside containers, pointing out potential problems from security to configuration time to the problems of holding state within a container. The argument is intense and passionate, although a bit difficult for me to follow. (That, I believe, is due to my limited knowledge of databases and my even more limited knowledge of containers.)

I believe he raises questions which should be answered before one uses databases in containers. So in one sense, I think he is right.

In a larger sense, I believe he is wrong.

For that opinion, I refer to Clarke's first law, which states: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

I suspect that it applies to sysadmins and IT engineers just as much as it does to scientists. I also suspect that age has rather little effect, too. Our case is one of a not-elderly not-scientist claiming that databases inside of containers is impossible, or at least a Bad Idea and Will Lead Only To Suffering.

My view is that containers are useful, and databases are useful, and many in the IT field will want to use databases inside of containers. Not just run programs that access databases on some other (non-containerized) server, but host the database within a container.

Not only will people want to use databases in containers, there will be enough pressure and enough interested people that they will make it happen. If our current database technology does not work well with containers, then engineers will modify containers and databases to make them work. The result will be, quite possibly, different from what we have today. Tomorrow's database may look and act differently from today's databases. (Just as today's phones look and act differently from phones of a decade ago.)

Utility is one of the driving features of technology. Containers have it, so they will be around for a while. Databases have it (they've had it for decades) and they will be around for a while. One or both may change to work with the other.

We'll still call them databases, though. The term is useful, too.