Containers provide an easy way to run batch jobs without having to manage an environment and dependencies. Dynamic compute options, such as Azure Container Instances (ACI), can be used to efficiently ingest source data, process it, and place it in a durable store such as Azure Blob storage. 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. For developers, this is incredibly attractive. Though containers are portable, they’re constrained to the operating system they’re defined for. For example, a container for Linux can’t run on Windows, and vice versa.

Container Options On Azure

AKS

Simplify the deployment, management, and operations of Kubernetes with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) makes it simple to deploy a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure. AKS reduces the complexity and operational overhead of managing Kubernetes by offloading much of that responsibility to Azure. As a hosted Kubernetes service, Azure handles critical tasks like health monitoring and maintenance for you. The Kubernetes masters are managed by Azure. You only manage and maintain the agent nodes. As a managed Kubernetes service, AKS is free – you only pay for the agent nodes within your clusters, not for the masters.

App Service

Quickly create powerful cloud apps for web and mobile with Azure App Service. Quickly build, deploy, and scale web apps and APIs on your terms. Work with .NET, .NET Core, Node.js, Java, Python or PHP, in containers or running on Windows or Linux. Meet rigorous, enterprise-grade performance, security and compliance requirements used a trusted, fully managed platform that handles over 40 billion requests per day.

ACI

Easily run containers on Azure without managing servers with Azure Container Instances. Develop apps fast without managing virtual machines or having to learn new tools—it’s just your application, in a container, running in the cloud.

Batch

Cloud-scale job scheduling and compute management with Azure Batch. Use Azure Batch to run large-scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) batch jobs efficiently in Azure. Azure Batch creates and manages a pool of compute nodes (virtual machines), installs the applications you want to run, and schedules jobs to run on the nodes.

Service Fabric

Develop microservices and orchestrate containers on Windows or Linux with Service Fabric. Service Fabric is an open source project and it powers core Azure infrastructure as well as other Microsoft services such as Skype for Business, Intune, Azure Event Hubs, Azure Data Factory, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365, and Cortana. Designed to deliver highly available and durable services at cloud-scale, Azure Service Fabric intrinsically understands the available infrastructure and resource needs of applications, enabling automatic scale, rolling upgrades, and self-healing from faults when they occur.

ACR

Azure Container Registry allows you to build, store, and manage container images and artifacts in a private registry for all types of container deployments. Use Azure container registries with your existing container development and deployment pipelines. Use Azure Container Registry Tasks to build container images in Azure on-demand, or automate builds triggered by source code updates, updates to a container’s base image, or timers.

OpenShift

Run fully managed OpenShift clusters, jointly operated with Red Hat. Azure Red Hat OpenShift provides a flexible, self-service deployment of fully managed OpenShift clusters. Maintain regulatory compliance and focus on your application development, while your master, infrastructure, and application nodes are patched, updated, and monitored by both Microsoft and Red Hat. Choose your own registry, networking, storage, or CI/CD solutions. Or get going immediately using built-in solutions with automated source code management, container and application builds, deployments, scaling, health management, and more.

Your Next Steps

You have all the basics to how to begin your journey with containers on Azure. These different services for containers provide you with a number of different options to deploy your application. You’ll do your best to reduce your overhead, improve the speed of deployment, and even save a few dollars thanks to using containers on Azure.

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