It’s not virtualization, it’s namespaces. Docker makes use of Linux kernel features; started out with cgroups and now uses libcontainer. Each container is running in its own isolated(ish) namespace on the same host kernel.
It’s _very_ different technology than virtualization.
You don’t need docker to make a container on Linux (or Solaris for that matter).
Why would you transcode on the NAS?
Not what I’m suggesting at all; perf on most NAS is awful for that…
There’s a pretty well understood concept of what a NAS is; this isn’t a complicated philosophical problem.
A very common workflow in motion picture production is to use NAS for storage on a fast network, mount the SMB share, have a script/tool/app that monitors the ingest directory and writes to an output dir.
FWIW the key differentiator between a NAS and other types of network storage is the protocols they use.
If files is the main primitive, it’s a NAS; it’s its blocks it’s considered a SAN.
Sometimes SANs have NAS “heads” for clients that want file access or a block level storage device.
Did you build your NAS in the 90’s or early 2000’s?
This has been available in Synology and QNAP devices for that long…
I used to own the tape library that is the Disney Vault. A common pattern for transcoding is to have a watched folder. Drop files you need transcoded in, get files you want in a diff directory when finished.