Windows Server Containers
Brian Svidergol, Vladimir Meloski, Byron Wright, Santos Martinez, Doug Bassett · 2018
Containers are a new form of virtualization introduced in Windows Server 2016. This chapter tabulates the benefits of using containers over virtual machines and discusses their limitations. The container engine for creating and managing containers is provided by Docker. The chapter explains how to install Docker in Windows Server 2016. The developers typically create container images by downloading images from Docker Hub and then modifying them to suit their needs. Microsoft makes images for commonly used configurations, such as Nano Server, Server Core, and Internet Information Services (IIS), available there. Further, the developers can configure many aspects of containers when they create the container using the docker run command. They can configure access to storage, networking, resource constraints, and authentication to Active Directory (AD). DevOps is a relatively new application development and maintenance process that focuses on continuous improvement of applications and automating software deployment. Windows containers support that process.