The "It Works on My Machine" Problem: Applications that run successfully on one machine often fail on another due to environmental differences, conflicting dependencies, or system-level processes
Bare Metal Limitations: Running applications directly on hardware/OS exposes them to every disturbance in their environment - conflicting software, troublesome libraries, and intrusive system processes
Virtual Machine Trade-offs: Early 2000s solution that provided isolation but was slow, heavy, and expensive due to each VM running its own separate operating system
Container Innovation: Docker (2013) revolutionized deployment by providing application isolation without the overhead - containers include only source code and necessary dependencies
Efficiency Advantage: While you can only run a few VMs on a server, you can run hundreds or thousands of containers on the same hardware
Consistency Guarantee: Containers ensure applications behave consistently regardless of the ecosystem they're running in
Industry Adoption: Containerization has become crucial for developers and is rapidly being adopted by major companies
Docker's Market Position: Docker is the de facto standard for container technology, making it essential knowledge for modern development