Virtualization and Containers

What type of isolation do containers provide?

Process-level isolation.

What type of isolation do virtual machines provide?

Machine-level isolation.

What is the key difference between a virtual machine and a container?

A VM virtualizes an entire machine and runs a guest operating system; a container isolates an application/process while sharing the host operating system's kernel.

Do containers require a dedicated virtual processor for each container?

No. Containers share the host system's OS kernel and underlying hardware resources.

What operating system component do containers share?

The host operating system's kernel.

Why are containers generally lighter than virtual machines?

Containers share the host OS kernel and do not require a separate guest operating system.

VM vs. container

VM = virtualized machine + guest OS; container = isolated process/application + shared host OS kernel.

A company needs several isolated applications to run on one operating system with minimal overhead. Should it use VMs or containers?

Containers.

A company needs to run completely separate operating systems on the same physical hardware. Should it use VMs or containers?

Virtual machines.