Three times a week (Monday/Wednesday/Friday), John Savill tackles your most pressing IT questions.
Read through the FAQ archives, or send him your questions via email.
In this group of FAQs we look at containers in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10.
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Q. Are there any licensing restrictions when using Windows Containers?
Dept - Containers
A. There are two types of container:
Windows Containers - User mode isolation running on a shared container host
Hyper-V Container - Kernel mode isolation where the container runs in an automatically managed VM
When using Windows Container you can run an unlimited number of instances when using Standard or Datacenter. When using Hyper-V Containers you can run 2 on Standard edition or unlimited number on Datacenter. This follows the same usage as VMs running Windows Server.
Q. Can I run Containers on Windows 10?
Dept - Containers
A. Yes. Windows 10 can run Hyper-V containers (since the OS container images would be built on would be Windows Server 2016 and not Windows 10). This does not impact the container creation itself since the decision of Windows vs Hyper-V container is a deployment time choice and does not change the composition file or the image itself. The Hyper-V container enables a different base OS image to be used than the container host OS. Containers is also integrated with Visual Studio.
Q. If I am running Hyper-V containers based on a Linux base OS image does the 2 Hyper-V container restricted for Standard SKU still apply?
Dept - Containers
A. No. The 2 Hyper-V containers on Standard SKU is based on running Windows Server as a guest OS in a VM (which even though automatically managed a Hyper-V container is). If however you are running a Hyper-V container based on a Linux OS then the Windows Server guest OS limit does not apply.
