Lead Image © Alexander Litvinenko, 123RF.com
Containerized Applications with Azure Container Apps
Launch!
If you are interested in containerized applications without the Kubernetes overhead, take a look at Azure Container Apps (ACA). In this article, I show you how ACA can be a genuine alternative to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), where its limitations lie, and how you can deploy your own applications in a production environment from the command-line interface (CLI), portal, and Terraform.
Containers have long been considered the gold standard for modern software deployment, but for many teams, Kubernetes also means massive additional overhead with a dedicated cluster requiring admins to maintain nodes, upgrades, network rules, and monitoring. Such an undertaking might make sense for large enterprises with dedicated platform teams, but for smaller IT teams, it can often prove to be an unwanted burden.
Azure Container Apps [1] offers a solution. The service leverages container technologies and automation without having to run a Kubernetes cluster yourself. Microsoft abstracts cluster operations and provides a serverless platform that scales dynamically while keeping the costs transparent. Your applications run in containers, giving you the freedom to focus on the code, not the infrastructure.
Azure Container Apps is particularly interesting for microservices, APIs, or event-driven applications. Workloads can scale up to hundreds of instances as required and will automatically scale back down to zero when the load is low, all of which creates a cloud model that combines flexibility with efficiency.
From Containers to Services
Azure Container Apps is a fully managed platform for running containerized applications – without the need to operate your own clusters. You simply provide your container image and Azure automatically handles scaling, orchestration, and infrastructure. Typical use cases include microservices, web APIs,
...
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy ADMIN Magazine
Related content
-
Private cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack
Azure Stack is an Azure extension that implements an on-premises data center for consistent hybrid cloud deployments. -
The Azure Arc multicloud and on-premises management platform
The Azure Arc cloud service supports centralized management of Windows and Linux servers, Kubernetes clusters, and SQL servers that are not themselves running in Azure, extending Azure management capabilities to servers in traditional data centers or any other cloud environment. We show you how to get Azure Arc up and running and look at its key features. -
Azure Application Gateway load distribution tool
In the Azure cloud, Microsoft offers the Azure Application Gateway managed service as a Layer 7 load balancer that needs virtually no internal resources to set up and operate. -
Automated Azure Kubernetes Service cluster builds
Construct Kubernetes clusters from the Azure CLI in a consistent and predictable manner across every environment. -
Strengths and Weaknesses of Docker Swarm and Kubernetes
Docker Swarm and Kubernetes both orchestrate container clusters, manage workloads, improve reliability, and automate the operation of distributed applications, but they are based on different architectures. We compare the two platforms, highlighting their benefits and downsides.