Performance Analysis Between RunC and Kata Container Runtime

Kata container unifies the security advantages of virtual machines with the speed and flexibility of containers. It is designed along the Open Container Initiative’s specification to perform like containers, enforcing the workload isolation. Since Docker containers share the kernel of the host operating system, it is exposed to potential security threats. Kata container mitigates these security issues by introducing a lightweight virtual machine with separate kernels to create an isolated environment for the container. This research work aims at providing a quantitative analysis between the Docker and Kata container runtimes. The performance of both the technologies has been evaluated based on boot tests, system utilizations, and benchmarks, showing a detailed analysis of the security and performance tradeoff between both the container technologies.