How containerization works

First, there were virtual machines (VMs). VMs run inside a host operating system, and the host operating system is what runs directly on computer hardware. As far as the host operating system is concerned, the VM is simply an application it’s running that has been allocated a certain amount of memory (RAM) and a certain amount of disk space in the form of a virtual disk. VMware and Oracle VirtualBox both make virtualization clients that you can easily run and install on a Windows, Mac, or Linux PC. With those virtualization clients, you can make a VM that runs most versions of Windows, macOS, Linux, or Unix.

There is a plethora of use cases for VMs. My background is in cybersecurity, so the use case I’m most familiar with is malware testing. I can safely execute malware in a VM without harming the host operating system or its hardware. That’s because the VM assures that the virtual operating system is “sandboxed” from...