LXD, the system container manager, developed by Canonical and shipped by default with Ubuntu, makes it possible to create many containers of various Linux distributions and manage them in a way similar to virtual machines (VMs) but with lower overhead costs associated with them.
Unlike VMs, containers have the benefit of using a shared kernel such as; kernel security updates in Ubuntu, Livepatch support, minimal memory footprint, ease of sharing resources and an extremely low CPU usage/wakeups at idle.
This whitepaper explores the use of LXD containers as part of a team development environment, effectively setting up a shared lab on physical hardware or in the cloud.
You will learn how working in this environment:
- Reduces the time spent by team members getting a functional work environment
- Makes it easy to collaborate with colleagues, accessing their containers if needed
- Makes it possible to access the work environment of team members who are on leave
- Better use and control of resources by using shared systems
- Easy to implement snapshots and backups, huge time savers when a mistake happens