Virtualization and Containers

In computing, the concept of Virtual Machines is older than personal computers, dating back to the late 60s. Over the decades, the concept has been realized many different ways and for different purposes. In this presentation, we'll go over the history of virtualization and answer some big questions about it:

• What is a virtual machine?
• What is a container?
• Why is everyone so excited about Docker for the past 10 years?
• How has virtualization enabled Amazon and Microsoft and others to sell the current wave of “cloud”, where business users toss all their precious data and software over the wall and let someone else's computer do the work?

We'll end with a quick overview (and share a more detailed companion blog post) of some things YOU can try right now at home using free software, including:

• Thinkking of switching OSes, or do you that one criticial piece of software that isn't compatiable with your main OS? Use VirtualBox to run Linux under Windows or Windows under Linux. Or Windows or Linux under MacOS.
• Use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) to run a Linux virtual machine under Windows with tight integration with the Windows desktop
• Use Docker under Linux, or Docker under Linux inside WSL under Windows: try out and run complete web server applications, with all of their dependencies, on your own PC as easily as unpacking a Zip file.

Cover illustration by ChatGPT.