Abstract: Computing system enhancements make container instantiation faster, reduce layer content storage demands, and make more container image formats available. A container instantiation location sends a container image pull request to a container registry, receives an image manifest, sends a layer mount request to the registry instead of a layer content download request, receives a layer mount, optionally repeats for additional layers, creates a union file system spanning the layers, and launches a container process based on the union file system without first downloading all the layer content.

Abstract: Computing system enhancements make container instantiation faster, reduce layer content storage demands, and make more container image formats available. A container instantiation location sends a container image pull request to a container registry, receives an image manifest, sends a layer mount request to the registry instead of a layer content download request, receives a layer mount, optionally repeats for additional layers, creates a union file system spanning the layers, and launches a container process based on the union file system without first downloading all the layer content.

Abstract: A cloud-based fleet of sandboxes is scalable along two tiers. Additional sandboxes may be added to a particular sandbox network in a particular sandbox stack, or additional sandbox stacks may be added. Isolation of individual sandboxes within a sandbox network is provided by virtual switches or routers, and subnetting. Isolation of sandbox networks is provided by network or port address translation, and by running hypervisors in respective infrastructure-as-a-service virtual machines. Provisioning efficiency can be provided by the two-tiered architecture, by use of differencing disks, by use of virtual machine scale sets, and by hybrid core-count sandboxes. Sandboxes may be secured but still have outgoing internet connectivity. Workloads run in the sandbox may include builds, tests of development code, investigations of possible malware, and other tasks.

Abstract: A cloud-based fleet of sandboxes is scalable along two tiers. Additional sandboxes may be added to a particular sandbox network in a particular sandbox stack, or additional sandbox stacks may be added. Isolation of individual sandboxes within a sandbox network is provided by virtual switches or routers, and subnetting. Isolation of sandbox networks is provided by network or port address translation, and by running hypervisors in respective infrastructure-as-a-service virtual machines. Provisioning efficiency can be provided by the two-tiered architecture, by use of differencing disks, by use of virtual machine scale sets, and by hybrid core-count sandboxes. Sandboxes may be secured but still have outgoing internet connectivity. Workloads run in the sandbox may include builds, tests of development code, investigations of possible malware, and other tasks.