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Introduction
ACI (Azure Container Instances) is a managed service that lets you run containers directly on the Microsoft Azure public cloud without needing virtual machines (VMs).
You don't need to build underlying infrastructure or use higher-level services to manage containers with Azure Container Instances. ACI provides basic functionality for controlling a group of containers on a host computer. For more complex activities like coordinated upgrades, service discovery, and automatic scaling, it supports the usage of full container orchestrators like Kubernetes.
Azure Container Instance Features
ACI enables direct container control without requiring cloud virtual machines (VMs) or container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes. The following are some of the highlights:
Containers for Linux and Windows are supported.
Launch new containers via the Azure portal or the command-line interface (CLI); underlying compute resources are automatically set up and scaled.
Standard Docker images are supported, as well as the use of public container registries like Docker Hub and Azure Container Registry.
Enable Internet connectivity to containers using a fully qualified domain name and IP address.
The memory required for container instances and a number of CPU cores can be specified.
Mounting Azure file shares to the container provides persistent storage.
We organize many containers that share the same host, storage, and networking resources into groups. This is analogous to the Kubernetes concept of a pod.
Azure Container Instance and Container Orchestrators
Container orchestrators such as Kubernetes, Nomad, and Docker Swarm are commonly used when deploying containers at a large scale. These technologies aid in the automation and control of container interactions and concerns such as resource provisioning, networking, and storage management.
Some of the basic functions of container orchestrators are available in Azure container instances. It is not meant to be a full orchestration platform by design.
ACI orchestration vs. traditional orchestrators
Schedule containers, control affinity, monitor health, enable failover, auto-scaling, networking, service discovery, and application updates and rollbacks are all managed and automated by a full orchestration framework.
ACI takes a layered approach to container management, handling all of the necessary management functions for a single container. Orchestrators can handle activities linked to numerous containers on top of these basic capabilities because Azure controls the container instance's infrastructure, so they don't have to worry about finding a suitable host to operate a single container. The cloud's elasticity ensures that hosts are constantly available. Instead, the orchestrator may concentrate on making multi-container operations like scalability, high availability, and upgrades as simple as possible.
ACI vs. conventional orchestrators use cases
Container scaling on a virtual machine cluster is usually less expensive than running the same containers on Azure Container Instances for long-term stable applications. Container instances, on the other hand, are an excellent choice for making quick changes in overall capacity to deal with unexpected or short-term demand spikes.
You would normally scale up the number of virtual machines in the cluster and then deploy containers on those machines for applications that encounter severe changes in demand. ACI makes things easier by allowing the orchestrator to launch new containers directly on Azure Container Instances and terminate them when they are no longer needed.
Tutorial: Azure Container Instance Quickstart
You must first build an Azure resource group that permits you to deploy a container instance before you can use Azure Container Instances.
Azure CLI
Azure Cloud Shell is a command-line utility that allows you to use basic Azure functions. Cloud Shell can be accessed directly from the Azure portal by clicking on the ">_" icon in the top navigation bar, or it can be installed on a local PC.
To create a Linux container
Launch the Azure CLI.
Choose a name for your container, a public IP address, and a resource group in which it will run.
Type the following command in the prompt:
az container create --name helloworld --image microsoft/aci-helloworld --ip-address public -g [RESOURCE GROUP]
To check the status of a new container instance:
1. Use the following commands:
prompt:az container show --name helloworld -g [RESOURCE GROUP]
2. Check to verify if the container instance is in a "successful state" in the output.
3. Go to the public IP address listed and look for the "Welcome to Azure Container Instances" page.
To create a Linux container
The default settings for generating a public IP address are a single-core CPU, port 80, and 1.5GB of memory. Simply alter the values in the initial prompt to your liking to override these defaults.
To list running containers:
The Azure CLI may generate a table with the following information for each container in a resource group:
Name
Image (if assigned)
State
IP address/port
CPU/memory
OS type
Region
Use the following command to see a list of currently running containers:
az container list -g [RESOURCE GROUP] -o table
Azure Container Instance with Cloud Volumes
On AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, the premier enterprise-grade storage management solution, delivers secure, proven storage management services. Cloud Volumes ONTAP capacity scales to petabytes. It supports a wide range of use cases, including file services, databases, DevOps, and any other enterprise workload, thanks to a robust set of features like high availability, data protection, storage efficiencies, Kubernetes integration, and more.
ANF (Azure NetApp Files) is a fully managed cloud service that can be accessed via REST API and Azure SDKs. Customers can transfer and run apps on the cloud without worrying about storage infrastructure procurement or management.
Cloud Volumes ONTAP, in particular, supports Kubernetes Persistent Volume provisioning and administration of containerized workloads.
Azure Container Instances is a solution for any situation that may run without orchestration in isolated containers. Run event-driven applications, data processing, and build processes, and easily deploy from your container development pipelines.
What are the different types of container registries that ACI supports?
The image grabs from ACR, and ACI supports other third-party container registries like DockerHub. With an endpoint publicly available to the internet, ACI allows image pulls from ACR and other third-party OCI-compatible container registries such as DockerHub.
What is the underlying infrastructure that ACI is built on?
Azure Container Instances is designed to be a serverless containers-on-demand service, so you can focus on developing your containers rather than worrying about infrastructure. ACI operates on sets of Azure VMs of various SKUs, notably from the F and D series, for those curious or wish to compare performance. As we continue to improve and refine the service, we expect this to alter in the future.
Can I have my quota increased if I want to deploy thousands of cores on ACI?
Yes, indeed. Current quotas and restrictions can be found in the quotas and limits article, as well as which limits can be requested.
What is the best way to scale a container group?
Scaling is currently unavailable for containers and container groups. If you need to launch more instances, use our API to automate the process and send more queries to the service for container group creation.
Conclusion
In this article, we have understood the Azure Container Instances. We hope this blog will help you understand the concept of Azure Container Instances, and if you want to learn more about Azure, check out our other blogs on the AWS vs azure vs google cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Azure certification.
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