Docker lazy loading at Grab: Accelerating container startup times

This post details the implementation and results of using eStargz and Seekable OCI (SOCI) for Docker image lazy loading to reduce container startup times for data platforms. It presents benchmark and production performance improvements (30-40% faster startup times for Airflow and Spark Connect), discusses the technical background of container root filesystems, traditional image pull, and remote snapshotters. It also covers the specifics of the eStargz and SOCI formats, and provides insights into SOCI configuration tuning for AWS ECR environments, leading to a 60% improvement in image download time.