Control groups

Control Groups are another key component of Linux Containers. They implement resource accounting and limiting. They provide many useful metrics, but they also help ensure that each container gets its fair share of memory, CPU, disk I/O; and, more importantly, that a single container cannot bring the system down by exhausting one of those resources.

So while they do not play a role in preventing one container from accessing or affecting the data and processes of another container, they are essential to fend off some denial-of-service attacks. They are particularly important on multi-tenant platforms, like public and private PaaS, to guarantee a consistent uptime (and performance) even when some applications start to misbehave.

Control Groups have been around for a while as well: the code was started in 2006, and initially merged in kernel 2.6.24.