Which services are available for you to use to deploy containers directly to Azure?

Containers are the next evolution in virtualization, enabling organizations to be more agile than ever before. I see this from customers every day! They can write their app once and deploy everywhere, whether dev, test or production. Containers can run on any hardware, on any cloud, and in any environment without modification. In short, they offer a truly open and portable solution for agile DevOps.

With Azure Container Service (ACS), we provide customers a unique approach to managing containers in the cloud by offering a simple way for them to scale containers in production through proven open source container orchestration technology. Today we are announcing a series of updates to ACS that continue to demonstrate ACS is the most streamlined, open and flexible way to run your container applications in the cloud — providing even more customer choice in their cloud orchestrator. These updates, available today, include:

• Kubernetes on Azure Container Service (preview): In July 2014, roughly a month after Kubernetes became publicly available, we announced support for Kubernetes on Azure infrastructure. Kubernetes 1.4 offered support for native Azure networking, load-balancer and Azure disk integration. Today, we are taking this support even further and announcing the preview release of Kubernetes 1.4 on Azure Container Service. This deeper and native support of Kubernetes will provide you another fully open source choice for your container orchestration engine on Azure. Now, customers will have more options to choose their cloud orchestrator with ACS providing support for three fully open source solutions in DC/OS, Docker Swarm and Kubernetes. You can read more here from Brendan Burns, one of the founders of Kubernetes, for his view on Kubernetes on ACS.
• DC/OS Upgrade to 1.8.4: We’re pleased to share we have upgraded ACS support for DC/OS to version 1.8.4. This new version includes flexible new virtual networking capabilities along with job-scheduling and Marathon-based container orchestration baked right into the DC/OS UI. In addition, GitLab, Artifactory, Confluent Platform, DataStax Enterprise and our own Operations Management Suite are now available for one-click installation from the DC/OS Universe app store.
• Open Source Azure Container Service Engine: Today, we are releasing the source code for the ACS Engine we use to create Azure Container Service deployments in Azure. This new open source project on GitHub will allow us to share with the community how we deploy DC/OS, Swarm and Kubernetes and collaborate on best practices for orchestrating containers on Azure, both public and on Azure Stack.Furthermore, with the ACS Engine, you can modify and customize deployments of the service beyond what is possible today. Finally, with your help, we can take contributions from the community and improve the service running in Azure.

We are seeing organizations of every size move their container-based solutions from dev/test environments to production in the cloud, especially as they discover the business agility opportunities containers make possible. In addition to delivering more choice and flexibility on ACS, we’re also enabling more streamlined agile development and container management through new updates, including these:

• Azure Container Registry: Available in preview on Nov. 14, the Azure Container Registry is a private repository for hosting container images for use on Azure. Using the Azure Container Registry, you can store Docker-formatted images for all types of container deployments. In addition, the Azure Container Registry integrates well with the orchestrator offered by the Azure Container Service. When you use the Azure Container Registry, you will find it compatible with the open source Docker Registry v2 so you can use the same tools on ACR.
• VS, VSTS and VS Code integration and deployment to Azure Container Service: Also on November 16, we will release a new experience to enable you to easily set up continuous integration and deployment of multicontainer Linux applications using Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services and the open source Visual Studio Code. To continue enabling deployment agility, we expect to invest heavily in excellent dev-to-test-to-prod deployment experiences for container workloads using a choice of development and CI/CD solutions.

Azure is the only public cloud with a container service that offers a choice of open source orchestration technologies, DC/OS, Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, making it easier for you and your team to adopt containers in the cloud using the tools you love. You can get these agile benefits and more! Go try out DC/OS, Swarm or Kubernetes, on Azure Container Service today! If you want to see more, make sure you watch Microsoft Connect(); next week!

See ya around,

Corey

Deploy and scale containers on managed Kubernetes

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

1. Product overview
2. Features
3. Security
4. Solution architectures
5. Pricing
6. Getting started
7. Customer stories
8. Documentation
9. Updates
10. FAQ

Innovate, deploy, and operate Kubernetes seamlessly

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers the quickest way to start developing and deploying cloud-native apps in Azure, datacenters, or at the edge with built-in code-to-cloud pipelines and guardrails. Get unified management and governance for on-premises, edge, and multicloud Kubernetes clusters. Interoperate with Azure security, identity, cost management, and migration services.

Automated management and scalability of Kubernetes clusters for enterprise-grade container orchestration

Advanced identity and access management to monitor and maintain container security for governance at scale

Support for Linux, Windows Server, and IoT resources with AKS deployment on the infrastructure of your choice using Azure Arc

The fastest way to spin up managed Kubernetes clusters

Streamline deployment with prebuilt cluster configurations for Kubernetes with smart defaults. Connect and deploy your applications faster with app images. Prepare apps for production by using Draft for AKS to ready source code and non-containerized apps for deployments to a Kubernetes cluster. Autoscale apps using Kubernetes Event Driven Autoscaler (KEDA). Leverage commercial Kubernetes solutions and services in Azure Marketplace with click-through deployments to the Kubernetes platform and flexible billing models.

Browse solution architectures

Automate integrated end-to-end CI/CD pipelines

Iteratively develop and debug microservice applications with the Kubernetes extensions for Microsoft Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. Add CI/CD pipelines through GitHub Actions and simplify runtime and portability with Dapr. Quickly set up a test deployment strategy and gain observability into your environment. Detect failures with the Kubernetes resource view, control-plane telemetry, log aggregation, and container health.

Learn about developer best practices

Get flexible deployment options from the cloud to the edge with Azure Arc

Run an on-premises implementation of AKS on supported customer-managed infrastructures. Deploy containerized Windows and Linux applications in datacenters and at the edge. Create GitOps configurations to keep Kubernetes clusters in sync and automate updates for new and existing deployments. Use Azure Migrate to plan and execute a successful migration to AKS. Set up your cloud environment with help from the Azure Migration and Modernization Program.

Learn more about the Kubernetes community

Common uses for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Migrate your existing application to the cloud, build a complex application that uses machine learning, or take advantage of the agility offered by a microservices architecture.

Microservices with AKS

Use AKS to simplify the deployment and management of microservices-based architecture. AKS streamlines horizontal scaling, self-healing, load balancing, and secret management.

Secure DevOps for AKS

Kubernetes and DevOps are better together. Achieve the balance between speed and security, and deliver code faster at scale, by implementing secure DevOps with Kubernetes on Azure.

Bursting from AKS with ACI

Use the AKS virtual node to provision pods inside ACI that start in seconds. This enables AKS to run with just enough capacity for your average workload.

Machine learning model training with AKS

Training models using large datasets is a complex and resource-intensive task. Use familiar tools such as TensorFlow and Kubeflow to simplify training of machine learning models.

Data streaming scenario

Use AKS to easily ingest and process a real-time data stream with millions of data points collected via sensors. Perform fast analysis and computations to develop insights into complex scenarios quickly.

Use AKS and pay only for compute resources

• Pay only for the virtual machines and the associated storage and networking resources consumed.
• Take advantage of no-charge cluster management.

How customers are using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

"We wanted a platform to speed development and testing but do it safely, without losing control over security and performance. That's why Azure and AKS are the perfect fit for us."

Ståle Heitmann, Chief Technology Officer, Hafslund Nett

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"Using Kubernetes on Azure satisfies our objectives for efficient software development. It aligns well with our digital plans and our choice of open-source solutions."

Rasmus Hald, Head of Cloud Architecture, A.P. Moller - Maersk

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"Using AKS puts us into a position to not only deploy our business logic in Docker containers, including the orchestration, but also… to easily manage the exposure and control."

Thomas Gossler, Lead Architect, Digital Ecosystem Platform, Siemens Healthineers

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"With the migrations to AKS and Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server, we are fulfilling our plan to save costs and simplify processes for our application teams."

Olof Spångö, DevOps Digital System Owner, Scandinavian Airlines

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"When we started our journey on Azure, we were a really small team—just one or two developers. Our partnership with Microsoft, the support from their advisory teams, the great AKS documentation and enterprise expertise—it all helped us very much to succeed."

Bernhard Rode, Software Engineer, Bosch

• Read the story

AKS updates, blogs, and announcements

Frequently asked questions about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

• AKS is available in more than 40 regions worldwide, and new ones are being added regularly.

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers the quickest way to start developing and deploying cloud-native apps in Azure, datacenters, or at the edge, with built-in code-to-cloud pipelines and guardrails. As a hosted Kubernetes service, Azure handles critical tasks, like health monitoring and maintenance. You only manage and maintain the agent nodes.

• Kubernetes is open-source software for deploying and managing containerized applications at scale. It orchestrates a cluster of Azure virtual machines, schedules containers, automatically manages service discovery, incorporates load balancing, tracks resource allocation, and manages the health of individual resources using automatic restart/replication. AKS is a managed service that automates provisioning, upgrading, on-demand scaling, and more. Visit the Kubernetes website and topic page for details.

• Docker and Kubernetes are complementary. Docker provides an open standard for packaging and distributing containerized applications, while Kubernetes provides for the orchestration and management of distributed, containerized applications created with Docker. In other words, Kubernetes provides the infrastructure needed to deploy and run applications built with Docker.

• AKS can run in on-premises datacenters or edge environments, such as a retail store or branch office. Azure Kubernetes Service is enabled by Azure Arc and can be deployed on Azure Stack HCI and on both Windows Server 2019 and 2022 Datacenter. These flexible deployment options are enabled by Azure Arc and make it quicker to get started hosting Linux and Windows containers in your datacenter or edge locations.

Try Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for free

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