The DITA for Small Teams Docker containers make it easy to set up a complete D4ST environment on any machine using the Docker container technology.

Docker containers are packages that contain software applications that can be run on any machine with a "Docker machine". A Docker machine is a kind of virtual machine that can run Docker containers. Software providers can make pre-configured Docker containers available for others to use. Using the Docker software you can get and run Docker containers with a minimum of effort. Docker containers may also contain just data to be used by other containers or to be copied to host machines.

The DITA for Small Teams project provides instructions for using a combination of off-the-shelf Docker containers and D4ST-provided containers to quickly set up a working DITA for Small Teams environment on any machine, whether it's your personal laptop, a shared server within your office, or on a cloud managed service such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.

As of August 2016, Docker provides Docker versions for OS X and Windows that provide tight integration of Docker with the operating system, making it about as easy as it could be to install, configure, and use Docker containers.

These instructions reflect the use of Docker for Mac, Docker for Windows, or Docker Machine running under Linux. You can use the D4ST containers with the older Docker Machine approach under Windows or OSX, but it's harder and less convenient.