Modernizing Distributed Infrastructure: Why You Need a Container-First Edge Platform

Refreshing your distributed infrastructure is a major undertaking. Whether driven by hardware end-of-life, rising maintenance costs, or evolving application demands, a tech refresh is an opportunity to modernize—and to avoid replicating outdated patterns.

One of the decisions you’ll face is whether to prioritize a virtual machine (VM)-centric approach or to embrace containerization from the ground up. For organizations operating at the edge, this choice will define your operational agility, scalability, and future readiness. Our advice? Go container-first.

The hidden cost of letting VMs dictate your edge

Many organizations today still run VM-based applications at the edge. Legacy is not always easy to get rid of and there is often at least to some extent an installed base of VM workloads. It’s tempting, then, to select an edge platform that primarily caters to VMs. But doing so locks you into an outdated model that fails to capitalize on the evolution happening across modern distributed environments.

A VM-first platform ties your future application innovation to heavyweight, resource-hungry constructs—just as the rest of the industry is optimizing for lightweight, agile, and portable software delivery with containers. Even worse, it can silo your operations, forcing you to maintain separate workflows for cloud and edge environments.

Container-first Edge Platforms offer the best of both worlds

Edge platforms that are designed with containers at their core provide a better path forward. By focusing on the container form factor, you align your edge infrastructure with the same operational models, tooling, and practices that drive innovation in cloud environments.

A container-first platform doesn’t mean leaving your existing VM-based applications behind. Look for solutions that enable you to run VMs where needed, but without letting them dictate the design of your entire infrastructure. This approach lets you:

• Future-proof your edge environment for modern, containerized applications
• Standardize operational practices between cloud and edge, reducing complexity
• Leverage powerful cloud-native tooling for deployment, observability, and scaling
• Gradually transition legacy workloads without forcing an all-at-once migration

💡 Learn more? Check out this demo of How to Migrate Legacy VMs to Containers with Avassa.

Unlock cloud agility at the edge

By prioritizing containerization, you set up your distributed environments to gain the same agility, resilience, and efficiency benefits seen in cloud computing. Deployment pipelines, automated scaling, declarative configuration management, and robust monitoring become standard capabilities—not expensive, customized projects.

Moreover, a container-centric edge platform helps you build a developer self-service environment. Modern application teams expect to work with containers. Empowering them with a familiar and efficient operational model accelerates innovation and minimizes friction.

Don’t let yesterday’s technology steer tomorrow’s infrastructure

Choosing a legacy VM platform for your edge refresh might seem like a safe bet today. But it risks becoming a major barrier tomorrow. Instead, think container-first, and select a platform that can carry both your legacy and future workloads forward — on an architecture that’s ready for what’s next.

At Avassa, we believe in building edge environments that are lightweight, agile, and cloud-aligned. Our platform is container-first, with full support for running VMs where necessary—giving you the best of both worlds without compromise.

If you’re planning a tech refresh for your distributed infrastructure, make sure you don’t just replicate the past, build for the future. Go container-first.