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But they serve the same purpose, even if their implementations are entirely different.

So it makes sense to provide an initial explanation of one in terms of the other, in special for people who already have some mental model of what virtual machines do.

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No, they don't serve the same purpose. Try running a Microsoft Exchange in a Docker container on a Linux server. Then try running it in a Windows VM on a Linux server.

Even if they don't always serve the same purpose, they serve a similar purpose in a number of examples. It's still a valid analogy to get someone thinking about how they might work.

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