Containers

Containers give a standard approach to packaging your application's source code, configuration files, libraries, and dependencies in a single object. A single box can be used to run small microservices or large software applications.

Nowadays, most software is built using a microservices architecture. The easiest way of building microservices is by using containers. But technology and architecture are only half of the equation.

Containers consist of the source code of the application, configuration files, libraries, and dependencies that are necessary to run the application. Such a package can then be run pretty much anywhere, no matter if it’s an on-premises server, a virtual machine in the cloud, or a developer’s laptop.

This all might sound like a concept of a virtual machine deployed from a prebuilt image, but containers work much differently.

The main difference between a VM and a container is a container virtualizes the operating system, whereas a virtual machine is an abstraction of physical hardware.

With containers, DevOps archives faster delivery without sacrificing quality, and software deployment, delivery, and implementation are automatic and reliable.