what are containers

Containers are a form of operating system-level virtualization or application-level virtualization that package software and its dependencies, allowing applications to run in isolated user spaces called containers in any cloud or non-cloud environment, regardless of type or vendor). They are lightweight, portable, and contain all the necessary elements to run in any environment, such as executables, binary code, libraries, and configuration files. Containers share the same operating system kernel and isolate application processes from the rest of the system, making them easy to move, open, and use across development, testing, and production configurations. They are used to separate application dependencies from infrastructure, making applications more portable and efficient. Containers are widely adopted by cloud computing platforms and are used for agile development, efficient operations, and sharing CPU, memory, storage, and network resources at the operating system level). They are different from virtual machines (VMs) as containers virtualize at the OS level while VMs virtualize at the hardware level, and containers share the OS kernel and use a fraction of the memory VMs require. Overall, containers are a standardized unit of software that packages up code and all its dependencies so that applications run quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another.