A virtual machine is an isolated operating system environment running on top of the host computer’s original operating system. This hypervisor-based technology enables us to run one or multiple operating systems on the same host computer (e.g. a Linux virtual machine on top of a Windows host computer). However, a virtual machine can be resource-heavy to the host computer. In recent years, the container technology has emerged as a lightweight alternative to the virtual machine, also providing an isolated software environment for the user. This is particularly useful when the user needs to run a software package requiring certain dependencies that are not readily available on the host computer. This workshop will cover the basic concepts and usage of virtual machines and containers, compare their differences and discuss the use cases.

If you have questions regarding the workshop, please contact Jerry Huang.