Containers

Containers have changed how software is built, shipped, and run. If you work in IT, or are an enthusiast building at home, containers are truly worth understanding.

Containers are a lightweight, portable package of software. It bundles an application together with everything it needs to run, and wraps it in an isolated environment. The same container runs the same way on a developer’s laptop, a test server, and a production environment.

There’s a misunderstanding that containers are virtual machines. They’re not!

VMs simulate hardware and run a full operating system. Containers dont’ have any of that. Instead, they share the host’s kernel and only include what the application actually needs.

The result is something that starts in seconds, uses far less memory, and can be scaled up or torn down on demand.

Docker is one of the engines that makes this a reality. It’s the tool you use to run, build, and manage containers.

You pull an image from a registry, run a container from that image, and Docker handles the rest. It’s available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it’s by far the most widely used container platform in the industry.