Containers and virtual machines are often misunderstood as alternatives.
They are not.
They operate at different layers and solve different problems.
Virtual Machines
Virtual machines provide hardware-level isolation.
They are responsible for:
Security boundaries
Multi-tenant isolation
Operating system separation
Cloud infrastructure is built on virtual machines.
Containers
Containers package applications and their dependencies.
They provide:
Environment consistency
Fast startup times
Portable application delivery
Containers depend on the host operating system and infrastructure.
How They Fit Together
In real-world systems:
Virtual machines form the base layer
Containers run on top of virtual machines
Containers do not replace virtual machines.
They complement them.
At InfraForgeLabs – DevOpsMind, this layered model is taught as a core DevOps concept.
At InfraForgeLabs – InfraForge, infrastructure templates are generated assuming this real-world architecture.
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