Introduction to Software Containers

https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container

Why use software containers?

• Simple Containers simplify software installation and management.
• Portable You can build an image on one machine and run it on another.
• Reproducible Versioning and freezing of containers enable data reproducibility.

Characteristics

Containers

• share the OS kernel of the host
• virtualize the OS instead of hardware
• have much less overhead and faster deployment than a VM

Apptainer/Singularity is designed for HPC

• Does not require sudo privilege to run (unlike Docker)
• Interoperates well with HPC resource managers in multi-node environments
• Easily makes use of GPUs, high speed networks, parallel filesystems
• Able to convert Docker images