Headshot Mike Coleman

Mike Coleman

Staff Solutions Architect, Docker

Mike is a Technical Evangelist at Docker, Inc.
He tweets at @mikegcoleman.

More by Mike

Oct 31, 2025

Mr. Bones: A Pirate-Voiced Halloween Chatbot Powered by Docker Model Runner

How to turn a Home Depot skeleton into a live, pirate-voiced chatbot using a local LLM and Docker Model Runner—fast, low-cost, and fully in character.

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Oct 24, 2025

Your Org, Your Tools: Building a Custom MCP Catalog

Fork Docker’s MCP Catalog, host images in your registry, publish a private catalog, and expose servers via MCP Gateway to run a controlled MCP environment.

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Dec 2, 2024

A Beginner’s Guide to Building Outdoor Light Shows Synchronized to Music with Open Source Tools

A Docker staff solutions architect shares their experience building DIY holiday light displays synchronized to music, offering a step-by-step guide for anyone looking to create their own dazzling show.

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Feb 15, 2018

Docker Compose and Kubernetes with Docker for Desktop

If you’re running an edge version of Docker on your desktop (Docker for Mac or Docker for Windows Desktop), you can now stand up a single-node Kubernetes cluster with the click of a button. While I’m not a developer, I think this is great news for the millions of developers who have already been using Docker…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
May 13, 2016

So, when do you use a Container or VM?

Recently I was giving a talk at a trade show on the basics of Docker, and how an application goes from an idea to being a production workload running on a Universal Control Plane managed Swarm cluster. As part of that talk, I spent a bit of time talking about how containers are not VMs….

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Apr 29, 2016

To Use Physical Or To Use Virtual: That is the container deployment question

I have had a version of the following conversation more than a few times with community members trying to sort out where to run their containerized apps in production: User: So, where should I run my containers? Bare metal or VM’s Me: It’s not a question of “either / or” – that’s the beauty of…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Apr 15, 2016

There’s Application Virtualization and There’s Docker

In what appears to be a recurring theme (which I promise I’ll move off of soon), I’m going to spend some time talking about what Docker isn’t – Docker is not application virtualization. I spent a good amount of time at VMware where I worked on VMware View (which begat Horizon View which begat Horizon…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Apr 8, 2016

Containers and VMs Together

A couple weeks back I talked about how Docker containers were not virtual machines (VMs). I received a lot of positive feedback on the article (thanks!), but I also heard a common question: Can VMs and Docker containers coexist? The answer is a resounding “yes.” At the most basic level VMs are a great place…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Mar 24, 2016

Containers are not VMs

I spend a good portion of my time at Docker talking to community members with varying degrees of familiarity with Docker and I sense a common theme: people’s natural response when first working with Docker is to try and frame it in terms of virtual machines. I can’t count the number of times I have…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Oct 31, 2025

Mr. Bones: A Pirate-Voiced Halloween Chatbot Powered by Docker Model Runner

How to turn a Home Depot skeleton into a live, pirate-voiced chatbot using a local LLM and Docker Model Runner—fast, low-cost, and fully in character.

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Oct 24, 2025

Your Org, Your Tools: Building a Custom MCP Catalog

Fork Docker’s MCP Catalog, host images in your registry, publish a private catalog, and expose servers via MCP Gateway to run a controlled MCP environment.

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Dec 2, 2024

A Beginner’s Guide to Building Outdoor Light Shows Synchronized to Music with Open Source Tools

A Docker staff solutions architect shares their experience building DIY holiday light displays synchronized to music, offering a step-by-step guide for anyone looking to create their own dazzling show.

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Feb 15, 2018

Docker Compose and Kubernetes with Docker for Desktop

If you’re running an edge version of Docker on your desktop (Docker for Mac or Docker for Windows Desktop), you can now stand up a single-node Kubernetes cluster with the click of a button. While I’m not a developer, I think this is great news for the millions of developers who have already been using Docker…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
May 13, 2016

So, when do you use a Container or VM?

Recently I was giving a talk at a trade show on the basics of Docker, and how an application goes from an idea to being a production workload running on a Universal Control Plane managed Swarm cluster. As part of that talk, I spent a bit of time talking about how containers are not VMs….

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Apr 29, 2016

To Use Physical Or To Use Virtual: That is the container deployment question

I have had a version of the following conversation more than a few times with community members trying to sort out where to run their containerized apps in production: User: So, where should I run my containers? Bare metal or VM’s Me: It’s not a question of “either / or” – that’s the beauty of…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Apr 15, 2016

There’s Application Virtualization and There’s Docker

In what appears to be a recurring theme (which I promise I’ll move off of soon), I’m going to spend some time talking about what Docker isn’t – Docker is not application virtualization. I spent a good amount of time at VMware where I worked on VMware View (which begat Horizon View which begat Horizon…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Apr 8, 2016

Containers and VMs Together

A couple weeks back I talked about how Docker containers were not virtual machines (VMs). I received a lot of positive feedback on the article (thanks!), but I also heard a common question: Can VMs and Docker containers coexist? The answer is a resounding “yes.” At the most basic level VMs are a great place…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman
Mar 24, 2016

Containers are not VMs

I spend a good portion of my time at Docker talking to community members with varying degrees of familiarity with Docker and I sense a common theme: people’s natural response when first working with Docker is to try and frame it in terms of virtual machines. I can’t count the number of times I have…

Headshot Mike Coleman
Mike Coleman