After VM's - Docker and Containerisations

This looks interesting

instead of running full blown VM's you just "Containerize" your application (whatever it is and on whatever platform) and run it within the Docker application.

https://www.docker.com/

I haven't understood it much so far but it looks very intriguing. Perhaps VMWARE and ORACLE should be getting worried if this stuff works. I believe even Ms is getting into the act with the AZURE cloud servers.

Cheers
jimbo

No, not interesting. There are plenty of ways to run something on something-else using some abstraction layer.

Java for example. Or Android. Or IBM i.

Docker and similar is not virtualization so much as sandboxing. It doesn't get rid of the underlying kernel, but does allow you to sandbox the libraries and other frameworks so that you can have them run in their own container for security, as well as isolation purposes. So, for example, you could run multiple versions of Internet Explorer in separate containers, but you couldn't run a Linux application because that would require a Linux kernel.

The idea is that you can sort of create a "disk" image of all the components necessary for an application to run, including all of its configuration, and it just runs in it's container. You don't need to install it, and you don't need to worry about it conflicting with other apps (or users).

It's not going to replace virtualization, which is necessary to manage resources, like CPU's and memory.. but it can replace a lot of the things that people currently use Virtualization for, but don't really have to.. when all they really need is isolation.