  Containers offer an array of advantages that benefit research reproducibility
and portability across groups and systems. As container tools mature, container
security improves, and High-performance computing (HPC) and cloud system tools
converge, supercomputing centers are increasingly integrating containers in
their workflows. The technology selection process requires sufficient
information on the diverse tools available, yet the majority of research into
containers still focuses on cloud environments. We consider an adaptive
containerization approach, with a focus on accelerating the deployment of
applications and workflows on HPC systems using containers. To this end, we
discuss the specific HPC requirements regarding container tools, and analyze
the entire containerization stack, including container engines and registries,
in-depth. Finally, we consider various orchestrator and HPC workload manager
integration scenarios.
