Today’s OS virtualization technologies are primarily focused on providing a portable, reusable, and automatable way to package and run apps. The terms application container or simply container are frequently used to refer to these technologies. As the enterprise gravitates toward private clouds, particularly Linux-based clouds, an integrated container stack will be crucial for the delivery of applications and microservices to a diverse workforce. Containers are poised to emerge as an integral component of the cloud, which itself is on the way to dominating IT infrastructure both within and without the data center. Virtualization laid the groundwork for this transformation, but containers will kick it into the high-speed, highly diverse data environment that will propel data productivity for another generation.