Container is a term that describes an isolated IT hosting environment which runs its own Operating System (OS) alone, which might or might not be a different type of OS than the one of the underlying physical server (infrastructure). Unlike the other Virtual Servers (Virtual Machines), the so-called Containers are created through a virtualization technique called OS Virtualization. It is a software assisted virtualization, which allows any computer hardware to run multiple instances with separate OS concurrently.

The instances (VEs), also containers, work like a separate, real computers. Any software application running on a standard  Operating System can use all resources – CPU power, memory and other computing resources as well as files and folders – of a Container based computer.

Containers crated thought an OS Operating virtualization does not feature the same level of flexibility as the Virtual Machines created with full virtualization, for example. A Container cannot use an OS different from the one that runs on the underlying physical server, or a different guest kernel. If the underlying host runs any Linux distribution, the Containers that run on top of it cannot run Windows.

“Managed Hosting” is a popular term in the web hosting industry. It describes a It hosting service provided from a isolated instance – a physical dedicated server or virtual server (VPS). “Managed Hosting” means that the provider is responsible for technical administration of the server, including but not limited to installation, OS installation and maintenance, network administration, security policy, updates, backups, maintenance and trouble shooting of any server-side programs and applications.

Term “Managed Web Hosting” is a broad term, that might or might not refer to “Manage Hosting”. It might would be used to describe in general that a certain type of IT hosting service is managed by the web hosting provider. It could be either physical server (Managed Dedicated Hosting or Managed Dedicated Server), Virtual Server (Managed Virtual Private Server, VPS, Managed VDS) or any custom-buit or clustered system.

For managed service term that applies to Share Hosting, review “What does Managed Shared Web Hosting mean?”.