Learning Windows Server Containers
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A few key implementations of containers

Some of the key implementations of containers are as follows:

  • The word container has been around since 1982 with the introduction of chroot by Unix, which introduced process isolation. Chroot creates a virtual root directory for a process and its child processes, the process running under chroot cannot access anything outside the environment. Such modified environments are also called chroot jails.
  • In 2000, a new isolation mechanism for FreeBSD (a free Unix like OS) was introduced by R&D Associates, Inc.'s owner, Derrick T. Woolworth, it was named jails. Jails are isolated virtual instances of FreeBSD under a single kernel. Each jail has its own files, processes, users, and super accounts. Each jail is sealed from other jails.
  • Solaris introduced its OS virtualization platform called zones in the year 2004 with Solaris 10. One or more applications can run within a zone in isolation. Inter-zone communication was also possible using network APIs.
  • In 2006, Google launched process containers, a technology designed for limiting, accounting, and isolating resource usage. It was later renamed to control groups (cgroups) and merged into the Linux kernel 2.6.24.
  • In 2008, Linux launched its first out-of-the-box implementation of containers called Linux containers (LXC) a derivative of OpenVZ (OpenVZ developed an extension to Linux with the same features earlier). It was implemented using cgroups and namespaces. The cgroups allow management and prioritization for CPU, memory, block I/O, and network. Namespaces provided isolation.