The third technical preview of Windows Server 2016 was released today, with one new feature in particular sure to attract interest: container support.

Microsoft announced two kinds of container support for Windows Server 2016 back in April. The containers included in today's release are comparable to similar offerings on Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD; while they provide an isolated environment for deploying applications into, they don't shield apps from the underlying operating system or its version.

Redmond is also promising a second kind of container, Hyper-V containers, which will use operating system virtualization to allow containers to use a different operating system or version from their host. They're not in today's build.

Whichever form of container is being used, Windows Server 2016 will support using Docker to manage and deploy containers. Microsoft is continuing to work with Docker (including making open source contributions) to make Windows into a first-class platform for using containerized software.

Preliminary support for building and deploying to containers in Azure is also now available for Visual Studio and Visual Studio Online. Both ASP.NET and command-line apps can be packaged into containers and published to container hosts running in Azure.

The new preview also includes improved management of software-defined networks and nano servers. It also includes support for Shielded virtual machines in Hyper-V. Shielded VMs strive to protect the contents of the virtual machine from the system administrator.

Also available today is a preview of System Center 2016. Both products will see further preview released before their eventual release in 2016.