What is the purpose of Docker Volumes?

The primary purpose of Docker Volumes is to persist and manage data used by containers. Volumes provide a way to store data independently of the container's lifecycle, meaning that data created in a volume can outlive the container itself. This is crucial for stateful applications where data needs to be retained even after containers are stopped or removed.

By using volumes, you ensure that data is not lost when a container is recreated or updated, which is essential for scenarios like databases, user uploads, logs, and any other persistent data requirements. Volumes also facilitate data sharing between multiple containers and can be backed up or migrated easily.

This differs significantly from the other options. Managing container network settings pertains to network configurations rather than data storage, while updating container configurations and controlling the container lifecycle focus on different aspects of container management rather than data persistence.