The last years have shown a lot of interest in Linux container technology. Technically this approach is not that new. Linux operating systems such as Solaris supported containers a long time ago. However, Docker made a the breakthrough in this technology by providing features to build, manage and ship containers in a uniform way.
What is the difference between containers and virtual machines (VMs) and what makes containers that interesting?
Virtual machines act like a computer in a computer. They allow the runtime to be easily managed from the outside such as creating, starting, stopping, and distributing machines in a fast and ideally automated way. If new servers need to be setup, a blueprint, an image, of the required type can be deployed without installing software from scratch every time. Snapshots of running environments can be taken to easily backup the current...