Containerization Overview

Containerization Overview

Containers are a convenient way to package and distribute an application. You can think of a running container as a sort of lightweight Virtual Machine, with a focus on a single piece of software. It not only includes the application you’re trying to run (e.g., DataWORQ), but also a pared-down environment to run that application in (e.g., Windows 11 or Ubuntu).

In the following sections, some container terminology will show up; we’ll define a few of the most important terms here:

• Container: contains the contents of a container image, an execution environment, and a set of instructions to run
• Container image: a package with all the dependencies and information needed to create a container
• Container engine: a piece of software that runs the container and accepts user requests
  • In this case, the container engine is Podman, though you may have also heard of Docker, another container engine.

For a more complete overview of relevant container terminology, see here: Container terminolgy

For a more complete overview of Podman, and more information around containers in general, see here: Podman