Apache Mesos, an open-source cluster manager developed at UC Berkeley, facilitates resource isolation and sharing across distributed applications. It operates with a master daemon managing slave daemons on each cluster node, using a two-level scheduling mechanism where resource offers are made to frameworks. These frameworks, applications running on Mesos, decide the resources to accept and the applications to execute. Marathon, a container orchestration platform on Mesos, primarily supports Docker containers. The blog post provides detailed instructions for setting up Mesos, Marathon, and running a simple Docker image on CentOS, emphasizing that the process can be complex and suggesting that a future post will offer a more seamless installation using DC/OS. The author acknowledges learning from the Mesos Slack community and plans to explore more efficient setup methods in future discussions.