As you can see below, unlike traditional virtual machines, the Docker engine runs on a layer between the host OS kernel and the isolated application services that are being containerized. Docker images have many benefits such as portability (applicable to multiple environments and platforms), customizable, and highly scalable. They have even added native support for images for Windows as a product feature in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016!Ī Docker image is run on a container by using the Docker Engine.
In response to the rise in Docker’s popularity, Microsoft has started to publicly support Docker images for several flagship products on their Docker Hub page. However, these days the usage of Docker container images has grown partly due to the popularity of micro-service architecture. This methodology required more hardware and overhead to provision new machines for each software and OS specification.
