A gentle, hands-on introduction to containers and virtual machines

This lesson has been piloted by external instructors and is working well. We're seeking additional pilots to test it in diverse contexts and refine it further.

Ready for community piloting. Accepted for presentation at the RDAP Summit on April 13, 2026.

About this Lesson

Learning Objectives

Using containers
Virtual machines

Keywords

containersvirtual machinesinfrastructure

Workshop History

Date	Location	Format	Instructor
10/10/2024	University of Arizona	Alpha Pilot	Fernando Rios & Jeffrey Oliver
6/5/2025	University of Arizona	Alpha Pilot	Fernando Rios & Jeffrey Oliver
4/13/2026	RDAP Summit 2026	Beta Pilot	Hafeez Adepoju (University of Arizona) & Chreston Miller (Virginia Tech)

Help Improve this Curriculum

This lesson is currently in the beta phase. We are actively seeking instructors to pilot this lesson in their own institutions. Feedback from external teaching is critical for reaching "Stable" status.

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For more on how to run a pilot, visit The Carpentries Handbook.

Instructor Specs

Duration: 3h 00m
Level: Intermediate
License: CC-BY 4.0

Cite this Lesson

APA Format:

Rios, F., Oliver, J. (2026). A gentle, hands-on introduction to containers and virtual machines. UCLA IMLS Open Science. https://ucla-imls-open-sci.info/lessons/a-gentle-hands-on-introduction-to-containers-and-virtual-machines

BibTeX:

Show BibTeX

@misc{a_gentle_hands_on_introduction_to_containers_and_virtual_machines_2026,
  author = {Fernando Rios and Jeffrey Oliver},
  title = {A gentle, hands-on introduction to containers and virtual machines},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {UCLA IMLS Open Science},
  url = {https://ucla-imls-open-sci.info/lessons/a-gentle-hands-on-introduction-to-containers-and-virtual-machines}
}

Resources

Lesson Website GitHub Repository

Repository Health

Last updated: May 2026
Contributors: 3 people
Open discussions: 9

What does this mean?

These signals come from the lesson's GitHub repository — the place where authors store and update the curriculum. Last updated tells you when the lesson materials were most recently changed. Contributors counts how many people have worked on it. Open discussions are questions, bug reports, or improvement suggestions that haven't been resolved yet — a higher number can mean active community interest or areas the lesson is still refining. Together they give a sense of whether the lesson is actively maintained.

Updated weekly from GitHub.