Microsoft Brings Linux Containers to Windows Server

During DockerCon 2017, Microsoft announced the availability of Linux containers on Windows Server 2016. John Gossman, Azure lead architect and Linux Foundation board member, made the announcement at the event followed by a live demo.

Until now, Windows containers ran on Windows systems, and Linux containers ran on Linux systems, which meant Microsoft's platform was deprived of thousands of containerized applications that are available on Docker Hub.

To bridge this gap, Microsoft added support for Hyper-V isolation to Linux containers running on Windows. Hyper-V isolation wraps a container in a very lightweight, optimized virtual machine designed to run nothing but containers. As a result, customers can run Linux containers natively on Windows Server.

"This will enable developers to build with Windows and IT administrators hosting Windows Server to run any container image regardless of their platform," Gossman wrote in a blog post.

During DockerCon, Gossman also highlighted the results of Microsoft and Docker collaboration for the last two to three years that also helped with two new Docker projects, LinuxKit and Moby Project, which were announced at the event.