Docker and Windows Server containers Docker and Kubernetes are the main technologies for deploying containerized applications on cloud infrastructure. They are also directly responsible for the popularity of the microservice architecture in modern software development, where software is broken down into loosely coupled services running independently in their own secure containers. Docker is the technology used to set up containers and is based on the kernel-based virtualization features built into the Linux kernel, while Kubernetes is the platform used to manage those containers and the applications running in them across multiple hosts (nodes) grouped into networks (clusters). As the two platforms gained massive popularity for software development and deployment, Microsoft wanted Docker and Kubernetes to be able to run on Windows Server as well, but the Windows kernel lacked some of the process and filesystem isolation features that allowed containers to share the same kernel on Linux.