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Microsoft Creates a Docker-Like Container For Windows

Posted by samzenpus on from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.

angry tapir writes Hoping to build on the success of Docker-based Linux containers, Microsoft has developed a container technology to run on its Windows Server operating system. The Windows Server Container can be used to package an application so it can be easily moved across different servers. It uses a similar approach to Docker's, in that all the containers running on a single server all share the same operating system kernel, making them smaller and more responsive than standard virtual machines.

4 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. This is a bit misleading by silviuc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Docker is moslty a set of tools to allow simple management of containers. It's not itself a container technology. On Linux, Docker leverages LXC and a bunch of other things. On Windows, the same functionality will be available but using Microsoft's container technology. MS and Docker are actually working on getting the Docker toolset on Windows

  2. Re:Or a simple solution. by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great idea. I'm going to stop using subroutines, too.

  3. Re:Or a simple solution. by Misagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Shared libraries are shared also so that you would be able to update the library without updating all applications that use it.

    By the way, when virtualizing servers you could also create file system instances using a copy-on-write filesystem, in which case you would be able to get self-contained instances with the least amount of copying necessary.
    Under Linux, you could use FUSE to get CoW on top of a underlying filesystem that doesn't support it.

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
  4. Re:Or a simple solution. by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How was this modded insightful?!

    The shared library is an out of date concept

    No, it is used by every major system today for very good reasons.

    Some will say that is how Macs do it

    Macs do have shared libraries - the files have a .dylib file extension.

    sounds good when storage was expensive

    Statically linked apps don't just take up orders of magnitude more storage, but also significantly more memory. Not only that, but a critical security update to one library requires recompiling and redeploying ALL of the apps that use that library.

    today we are virtualizing full platforms just to prevent version incomparably

    There are tons of reasons to virtualize that have nothing to do with version compatibility or network security.

    Since you seem so committed to statically linking apps, I suggest you go through the Linux From Scratch project and statically compile everything. Then, deploy it to an enterprise environment that requires five-nines uptime as well as all security updates. Be sure to set up a video camera so that I can watch with a bug bucket of popcorn.