Container System and Communication Reactivity in a Real-Time Embedded Environment

Abstract

In the field of embedded systems, containers are often understood as an additional burden and would also affect their reactivity. With respect to this assumption, we provide measurement results that strongly support the use of containers for real-time applications. This work examines the use of docker containers in systems, that must work under hard deadlines, in terms of their reactivity related to timer events and external signals. For this purpose, measurements for time-critical handling of interrupts and events are performed directly on an embedded platform, which made it necessary to develop a corresponding novel measuring method. Finally, we were able to determine that the same requirements for the reactivity of an embedded system could be met in a docker container if they could also be ensured for applications native on the host system.