Docker is a platform for managing container-based applications. Using the container-based approach we can separate our application from the actual physical machine, and run it in a self-contained environment.
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Docker software performs the same responsibility. It packages an application in a container, and runs and manages a container.
The concept of container is very important in docker, let’s discuss what a container is-
Docker Container
A container is an isolated environment for running an application. Here are the main criteria for container-
- A container stores all information and contents required to run an application.
- Containers are very lightweight, compared to setting up an isolated environment like a virtual machine.
- Provides security to the host system, as the process and commands executed inside a container has no effect on the host machine.
- Container images are immutable. That is why, it is very easy to scan the images for CVE(common vulnerabilities and exposures).
- Containers are extremely lean comared to Virtual Machines(VMs), that’s why it is very easy and less resource intensive to create a container.
- The application remains wrapped inside the container, and the outside infrastucture does not need to know any detail of the application implementation.
This enables us to run applications separately that use different versions of programming language or other software-