Virtualization and Cloud OS

Chrome OS

A lightweight, cloud-centric operating system developed by Google that runs primarily web-based applications through the Chrome browser.

Cloud Operating System

A platform that manages computing resources across cloud environments instead of a single machine.

Container

A lightweight, isolated environment that runs an application and its dependencies using the host operating system’s kernel.

Container Runtime

The software that runs as an application on the host OS to create and manage containers.

Control Groups (cgroup)

A Linux kernel feature that limits and monitors the resource usage—such as CPU, memory, and disk I/O—of processes or containers.

Docker

A container runtime that packages applications and their dependencies into portable units for consistent deployment across environments.

Hyper-V Container

A Windows container that runs each container inside a lightweight virtual machine, providing stronger isolation by using a separate instance of the Windows kernel for each container.

Hypervisor

A layer of software that creates and manages virtual machines by allocating physical hardware resources to them.

Namespaces

A feature of the Linux kernel that isolates system resources—such as process IDs, file systems, networks, and users—so that each container appears to have its own independent environment.

OS-level Virtualization

A method of running multiple isolated user-space instances on a single operating system kernel.

Serverless Computing

A cloud computing model in which developers run code without having to manage or provision servers.

Type 1 Hypervisor

A hypervisor that runs directly on the host’s physical hardware and manages VMs without needing a host operating system.

Type 2 Hypervisor

A hypervisor that runs on top of a host operating system and uses it to access hardware resources for managing virtual machines.

User-Facing Cloud OS

A streamlined operating system designed primarily to run web-based applications and rely on cloud services for storage, processing, and updates.

Windows 365

A cloud-based service from Microsoft that delivers a full Windows desktop experience via streaming to any device with an internet connection.

Windows Server Container

A container that uses the Windows kernel to run multiple isolated applications on the same host, sharing the operating system while maintaining separate execution environments.