Azure Containers
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What is a container?
Just as shipping industries use physical containers to isolate different
cargos—for example, to transport in ships and trains—software
development technologies increasingly use an approach called
containerization.
A standard package of software—known as a container—bundles an
application’s code together with the related configuration files and
libraries, and with the dependencies required for the app to run. This
allows developers and IT pros to deploy applications seamlessly across
environments.
Why are containers so helpful?
The problem of an application failing to run correctly when moved from one
environment to another is as old as software development itself. Such problems
typically arise due to differences in configuration underlying library requirements
and other dependencies.
• Containers address this problem by providing a lightweight, immutable
infrastructure for application packaging and deployment.
• An application or service, its dependencies, and its configuration are
packaged together as a container image.
• The containerized application can be tested as a unit and deployed as a
container image instance to the host operating system.
Containers vs. Virtual Machines Part 1
At a high level, VMs virtualize the underlying
hardware so that multiple operating system (OS)
instances can run on the hardware. Each VM runs
an OS and has access to virtualized resources
representing the underlying hardware.
VMs have many benefits. These include the ability
to run different operating systems on the same
server, more efficient and cost-effective utilization
of physical resources, and faster server
provisioning. On the flip side, each VM contains an
OS image, libraries, applications, and more, and
therefore can become quite large.
Containers vs. Virtual Machines Part 2
A container virtualizes the underlying OS and causes
the containerized app to perceive that it has the OS—
including CPU, memory, file storage, and network
connections—all to itself. Because the differences in
underlying OS and infrastructure are abstracted, as
long as the base image is consistent, the container can
be deployed and run anywhere.
Since containers share the host OS, they don’t need to
boot an OS or load libraries. This enables containers to
be much more efficient and lightweight. Containerized
applications can start in seconds, and many more
instances of the application can fit onto the machine
as compared to a VM scenario. The shared OS
approach has the added benefit of reduced overhead
when it comes to maintenance, such as patching and
updates.
Docker support in Azure
Azure Container Instances (ACI)
Containers are becoming the preferred way to package, deploy, and manage cloud applications. Azure
Container Instances offers the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure, without having to
manage any virtual machines and without having to adopt a higher-level service.
Azure Container Instances is a great solution for any scenario that can operate in isolated containers,
including simple applications, task automation, and build jobs. For scenarios where you need full
container orchestration, including service discovery across multiple containers, automatic scaling, and
coordinated application upgrades, we recommend Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) simplifies deploying a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure by offloading
the operational overhead to Azure. As a hosted Kubernetes service, Azure handles critical tasks, like
health monitoring and maintenance. Since Kubernetes masters are managed by Azure, you only manage
and maintain the agent nodes. Thus, AKS is free; you only pay for the agent nodes within your clusters,
not for the masters.
When you deploy an AKS cluster, the Kubernetes master and all nodes are deployed and configured for
you. Advanced networking, Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) integration, monitoring, and other features
can be configured during the deployment process.
