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Docker is an open source platform designed to build, distribute and run applications inside a container. A container is a virtual box that packages applications with dependent services and components. In comparison to the traditional virtualization functionalities of hypervisors, Docker containers eliminate the need for a separate guest operating system for every new virtual machine. A Docker container enables rapid deployment with minimum run-time requirements. It also ensures better management and simplified portability while reducing the resource requirements for deploying new containers. This helps developers and system admins in rapid deployment of an application.

The architecture of a Docker container includes a physical machine with a host operating system. On top of the host operating system, a Docker engine is deployed, which helps create a virtual container for hosting applications. Docker engines create isolated containers on which applications can be deployed. Unlike a typical hypervisor solution, Docker eliminates the requirement of creating a separate VM for each application, as well as the requirement of a guest OS for each VM. In hypervisor-based application virtualization, a virtualization platform (for example Hyper-V or VMware) is deployed on a physical server with a host OS. On top of the virtualization platform, virtual machines are created, each of which has an independent guest OS. Hosting so many virtual machines, each having an independent guest OS, makes this architecture much more resource-intensive than Docker containers. In Docker containers, applications are built directly over Docker engines, eliminating the need for a guest OS, which helps reduce overall system requirements and deployment costs.

Docker containers usually provide built-in tools to automate the process of container provisioning by leveraging source code from any existing application container. This takes care of services, dependencies, packaging and more. Docker also provides a broad range of pre-configured Docker images that help organizations in rapid deployment of application containers. To accomplish this same set of tasks, any hypervisor solution will require a complex procedure involving cloning applications, along with their dependencies and tools, into an isolated package.

Docker allows distribution or shipment of applications across different environments in a Docker type of container, with all parts bound as a single package. For instance, to move an application from a development environment into testing and then production, the entire container can be packaged and migrated as a single entity; the application remains bound with all the environment configurations. This helps in migrating applications across different departments, between teammates, or through the cloud without any risk of breaking things. In hypervisor solutions, packaging and migrating applications with all their dependent services and tools always risks environment breakdown.

In Docker containers, each application or container is isolated from others, but they use the same root. This provides the advantage of simplified management, although it also leads to a few disadvantages. For instance, if the root is compromised, the host containers could be at risk. Hypervisor solutions, in contrast, provide more or less complete isolation, depending upon the requirements.

Docker containers are ideal for: applications that need to run on more than one cloud; applications that use microservices; and applications that benefit from DevOps. Docker bundles key application components into a single container, which also makes these containers portable between different platforms and clouds. Developers using a fully encapsulated Docker container can create a more efficient distribution model for microservices-enabled applications, building applications that run on multiple platforms while both producing and consuming microservices.