[$] Demystifying container runtimes

As we briefly mentioned in our overview article aboutKubeCon + CloudNativeCon, there are multiple container "runtimes", which areprograms that can create and execute containers that are typically fetchedfrom online images. That space is slowly reaching maturity both in termsof standards and implementation: Docker's containerd 1.0 was releasedduring KubeCon, CRI-O 1.0 was released a few months ago, and rkt isalso still in the game. With all of those runtimes, it may be a confusingtime for those looking at deploying their own container-based systemor Kubernetes cluster fromscratch. This article will try to explain what container runtimes are, what they do, how they compare with each other, andhow to choose the right one. It also provides a primer on containerspecifications and standards.