Docker

Docker is something in between a virtual environment and a virtual machine. It performs operating system-level virtualization, also known as containerization, that isolates applications from the operating system to reduce compatibility problems because of libraries or system versions.

As the name suggests, a good analogy for Docker is shipping containers. They solve the following two problems:

• Transporting different goods, that are sometimes incompatible with each other—for example, food and chemicals
• Standardizing the dimension of packages of different sizes

Docker works in a similar way by isolating applications from each other and makes use of a standard layer to allow the spinning up of containers rapidly without much overhead.

One of the main advantages of data science is that it will (almost) solve the it was working on my machine problem and will make it easier and faster to distribute the environment to other people or to production systems.