Some folks aren't clear on the limitations. Linux containers will never run on bare metal using Windows Server OS. Virtualization will be required and you will incur that performance penalty. This is Microsoft appeasing it's current users. They aren't making any effort to get folks to switch from Linux as far as I can tell.
My experiences running Docker on Ubuntu on MS virtualization have been negative to lukewarm. First annoyance was dealing with dynamic memory allocation for the linux host, which works fine (I'm told) for Windows VMs, but had to be turned off. Second was some DNS issues, but it could just be that we have a shitty admin.<p>Nevertheless, Linux (and by extension Docker) and Windows are strange bedfellows IMO. I don't get the alliance from MS perspective.<p>Perhaps they're trying to focus on being a platform for developers, similar to Apple? The MS fans I work with love their interface... They just don't love paying license fees for production apps.
I wish people would stop butchering the word "innovation" as it pertains to software, though I realize this is a press release.<p>That said, I am interested how the Windows Server subsystems are going to be extended/rearchitected into enabling Docker. A verbatim compatibility layer for Linux namespaces and cgroups, or an LPAR-esque mechanism of their own that could potentially be used to build Windows-only container solutions that harness its specific powers?
What is this multiplatform container application they talk about? Is it a Hyper-V container with small Linux runtime? Or a docker-compose file with some containers running on Windows and some on Linux (e.g. ASP.NET on Windows and Redis on Linux)?