Azure Containers Explained

Azure Containers Explained

by Wesley Haakman, Richard Hooper
Released March 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781803231051

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Apply scenario-based learning to effectively handle the technical and business impact of various services like AKS, ACI, Azure Functions, and Azure Container Apps on Azure

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Key Features

  • Understand the what, why, and how of different container technologies available on Microsoft Azure
  • Explore the practical implementation of various Azure container technologies with the help of use cases
  • Learn common business strategies for selecting the right Azure container technology at optimized cost

Book Description

Whether you're working with a start-up or an enterprise, making decisions related to using different container technologies on Azure has a notable impact your app migration and modernization strategies. This is where companies face challenges, while choosing the right solutions and deciding when to move on to the next technology. Azure Containers Explained helps you make the right architectural choices for your solutions and get well-versed with the migration path to other platforms using practical examples.

You'll begin with a recap of containers as technology and where you can store them within Azure. Next, you'll explore the different Microsoft Azure container technologies and understand how each platform, namely Azure Container Apps, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Container Instances (ACI), Azure Functions, and Azure App Services, work – you'll learn to implement them by grasping their respective characteristics and use cases. Finally, you'll build upon your own container solution on Azure using best practices from real-world examples and successfully transform your business from a start-up to a full-fledged enterprise.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to effectively cater to your business and application needs by selecting and modernizing your apps using various Microsoft Azure container services.

What you will learn

  • Make the best-suited architectural choices to meet your business and application needs
  • Understand the migration paths between different Azure Container services
  • Deploy containerized applications on Azure to multiple technologies
  • Know when to use Azure Container Apps versus Azure Kubernetes Service
  • Find out how to add features to an AKS cluster
  • Investigate the containers on Azure Web apps and Functions apps
  • Discover ways to improve your current architecture without starting again
  • Explore the financial implications of using Azure container services

Who this book is for

This book is for cloud and DevOps architects, application developers, technical leaders, decision makers, and IT professionals working with Microsoft Azure and cloud native technologies, especially containers. Reasonable knowledge of containers and a solid understanding of Microsoft Azure will help you grasp the concepts in this book.

Table of contents

  1. Azure Containers Explained
  2. Contributors
  3. About the authors
  4. About the reviewer
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the example code files
    5. Download the color images
    6. Conventions used
    7. Get in touch
    8. Share Your Thoughts
    9. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  6. Part 1: Understanding Azure Container Technologies
  7. Chapter 1: Azure Containers – Pleased to Meet You
    1. Understanding containers and their benefits
      1. Container characteristics
      2. Container benefits
    2. Getting to know containers in the Azure landscape
    3. Exploring technologies and use cases
      1. Azure App Service for containers
      2. Azure Functions for containers
      3. Azure Container Instances
      4. Azure Container Apps
      5. Azure Kubernetes Service
      6. Azure Container Registry
    4. Summary
  8. Chapter 2: Azure App Service – Running a Container Was Never That Difficult
    1. Understanding Azure App Service for Containers
    2. Deploying containers to Azure App Service
      1. Seeing it in action
    3. The pros and cons of deploying containers on Azure App Service
      1. Pros
      2. Cons
    4. Summary
  9. Chapter 3: Deploying Containers to Azure Functions
    1. Understanding Azure Functions for containers
    2. Deploying containers to Azure Functions
    3. Docker containers for Azure Functions
    4. Pros and cons of deploying containers to Azure Functions
      1. Pros
      2. Cons
    5. Summary
  10. Chapter 4: Azure Container Instances for Serverless Containers
    1. Understanding ACI
      1. Container groups
      2. Networking
      3. Bursting from Azure Kubernetes Service
    2. Deploying containers in ACI
      1. ACI and YAML
    3. The pros and cons of running containers on ACI
      1. Pros
      2. Cons
    4. Summary
  11. Chapter 5: Azure Container Apps for Serverless Kubernetes
    1. Understanding Azure Container Apps
      1. Environments
      2. Revisions
      3. Containers
    2. Deploying containers to Azure Container Apps
    3. Pros and cons of running containers on Azure Container Apps
      1. Pros
      2. Cons
    4. Summary
  12. Chapter 6: Azure Kubernetes Service for Kubernetes in the Cloud
    1. Understanding how AKS works
      1. Control plane
      2. Nodes and node pools
      3. Versioning
    2. Deploying containers to AKS
    3. The pros and cons of running containers on AKS
      1. Pros
      2. Cons
    4. Summary
  13. Part 2: Choosing and Applying the Right Technology
  14. Chapter 7: The Single Container Use Case
    1. Scenarios and types of solutions
      1. Building a new solution – starting small
      2. You’re migrating to a container-based infrastructure
      3. You are extending your current solution to use a container
    2. Selecting the right Microsoft Azure technology
      1. Security
      2. Runtime
      3. State
      4. Usage and scalability
      5. Decisions, decisions, decisions
    3. Decisions and the future of your solution
      1. There are plans to develop another API
      2. The roadmap dictates Azure App Service is the way to go
      3. The roadmap dictates everything will run in containers
    4. Summary
  15. Chapter 8: Deciding the Best Fitting Azure Technologies for Multiple Containers
    1. Multiple container scenarios and their solutions
      1. Migration of the tightly coupled solution
      2. Decoupling a solution
      3. The Windows and Linux mix
    2. Deploying the right Microsoft Azure technologies
      1. Tightly coupled
      2. Loosely coupled
    3. Summary
  16. Chapter 9: Container Technologies for Startups
    1. A common start-up scenario and solution design
      1. Choosing the right technology
      2. Visualizing a design
    2. Deploying and implementing the solution
      1. Deploying the resource group and networking
      2. Deploying the customer's container app environment
      3. Deploying and testing the containers
    3. Learnings and future decisions
    4. Summary
  17. Chapter 10: Container Technologies for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
    1. Cloud Adventures web shop – scenario and design
      1. Choosing the right technology
      2. Visualizing a design
    2. Deploying and implementing the solution
      1. Creating the AKS cluster
      2. Isolating customers
      3. Setting up Ingress
      4. Deploying the application
      5. Configuring Azure Front Door
      6. Testing the websites
    3. Learnings and future decisions
    4. Summary
  18. Chapter 11: Container Technologies for Enterprises
    1. Cloud Adventures webshop – scenario and design
      1. The new requirements
      2. Visualizing a design
    2. Deploying and implementing the solution
      1. Enabling Azure Monitor/Container insights
      2. Enabling a managed identity
      3. Enabling Azure AD authentication and RBAC
      4. Enabling the Key Vault Container Storage Interface
    3. Learnings and future decisions
    4. Summary
  19. Part 3: Migrating Between Technologies and Beyond
  20. Chapter 12: Migrating Between Container Technologies
    1. Revisiting technologies
      1. Azure App Services
      2. Azure Container Instances
      3. Azure Container Apps
      4. Azure Kubernetes Service
    2. Investigating use cases for migrating between technologies
      1. Customer requirements and features
      2. Money, money, money
      3. Deprecation
      4. New technologies
      5. Allocating time for innovation
    3. Exploring migration paths
      1. Azure App Services to “anything”
      2. ACI to Azure Container Apps
      3. Azure Container Apps to AKS
      4. AKS
    4. Summary
  21. Chapter 13: Azure Container Instances – I Like the Scalability But I Need More
    1. ACI and the use case
      1. The constraints of ACI
      2. Motivations for migrating to a different technology
    2. The next technology
    3. Translating features from ACI to ACA
      1. ACI configuration for the original use case
      2. ACA configuration for an extended use case
    4. Summary
  22. Chapter 14: Beyond Azure Container Apps
    1. ACA and its use case
      1. Constraints of ACA
      2. Motivations for migrating to a different technology
    2. The next technology
      1. AKS configuration
      2. Basic knowledge requirements
    3. Translating the features from ACA to AKS
      1. ACA configuration for the original use case
      2. Azure Kubernetes configuration for an extended use case
    4. Summary
  23. Chapter 15: Azure Kubernetes Service – The Next Steps
    1. AKS and our use case
    2. Scalable deployments
      1. Creating a Helm chart
      2. Deploying the Helm chart
    3. Automatic scaling
      1. Scaling the nodes
      2. Scaling Pods
    4. Windows containers on AKS
      1. Use cases
    5. Summary
  24. Chapter 16: What’s Next – Diving into Future Trends and More
    1. Future trends
      1. Machine learning and AI
      2. Cloud-native development
      3. Multi-cloud
      4. GitOps
      5. Security
      6. Azure Red Hat OpenShift
    2. The future of AKS
      1. eBPF
      2. Fleet
      3. Draft v2
      4. Wasm
    3. Azure and Kubernetes certifications
      1. AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
      2. Certified Kubernetes Application Developer
      3. Certified Kubernetes Administrator
      4. Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist
      5. Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator
    4. Summary
  25. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  26. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Share Your Thoughts
    3. Download a free PDF copy of this book

Product information

  • Title: Azure Containers Explained
  • Author(s): Wesley Haakman, Richard Hooper
  • Release date: March 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781803231051