Containers

A container (for example, Linux containers) provides a lightweight runtime environment consisting of the core features of virtual machines and the isolated services of operating systems. This makes the packaging and execution of microservices easy and smooth.

As the following diagram shows, a container runs as an application (microservice) within the Operating System. The OS sits on top of the hardware and each OS could have multiple containers, with a container running the application.

A container makes use of an operating system's kernel interfaces, such as cnames and namespaces, that allow multiple containers to share the same kernel while running in complete isolation to one another. This gives the advantage of not having to complete an OS installation for each usage; the result being that it removes the overhead. It also makes optimal use of the Hardware:

Layer diagram for containers