Mastering Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V

process (vmwp.exe) will be present for each Hyper-V container. This is a special type of
Hyper-V VM specifically created just to launch a container: a utility VM. Because a
Hyper-V container requires a VM to be created and a separate OS instance to be built,
it will provision slower than a regular Windows container, which typically deploys fast
because the container instance is created on an existing container host. Additionally,
having a separate base image for a Hyper-V container will make it “heavier” from a
resource perspective, since it needs its own instance-specific OS disk storage along
with additional memory and processor resources to run a complete Windows Server
instance. However, Hyper-V containers use the Nano Server deployment mode for
Hyper-V containers, which provides the lightest possible Windows Server deployment
along with fast provisioning times that enable even Hyper-V containers to be
provisioned in seconds. Additionally, because this Hyper-V VM is being used for a
known reason (that is, to run containers), special steps are taken to accelerate the
provisioning of the Hyper-V container VMs. This includes creating a single VM,
making it read-only, and then cloning it for future containers, greatly accelerating the
provisioning times. If a regular container deploys in subseconds, a Hyper-V container
based on Nano Server will deploy in around 5 seconds and even less once the cloning
is utilized, which demonstrates that these are still fast deployments.

A container host can run any of the Windows Server 2016 deployment
modes/configuration levels: Server with Desktop Experience (aka Server with a GUI),
Server Core, and Nano Server. The deployment mode of the container host impacts the
server image used by containers running on that host, as shown in Table 10.1. This is
known as the container OS image (aka base image), which forms the foundation of
any container instance.

Table 10.1: OS Image Used Based on Container Host OS

CONTAINER   HOST

OPERATING   SYSTEM

WINDOWS SERVER

CONTAINER

HYPER-V

CONTAINER

Windows Server  with    Desktop

Experience

Server  Core    image   or

Nano    Server  image

Server  Core    image   or

Nano    Server  image

Windows Server  Core Server Core    image   or

Nano    Server  image

Server  Core    image   or

Nano    Server  image

Windows Nano    Server Nano Server  image Server    Core    image   or

Nano    Server  image

Windows 10 Not  available Server    Core    image   or

Nano    Server  image

Source: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/deployment/system_requirements

This table shows that Hyper-V containers can run either base OS image, since the
container is being created in a VM that has no dependence on the container host OS.
For a Windows container that is using the container host OS, the base OS image has to
be based on the same image as the container host or a lower deployment mode image.