Azure Containers Documentation

Get Started with Azure Containers

Unlock the power of containerization on Azure. Deploy, manage, and scale your applications efficiently.

1. Choose Your Container Service

Azure offers a variety of services to run your containers, each with different management capabilities and use cases.

  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): For orchestrated container deployments, scaling, and management.
  • Azure Container Instances (ACI): For running single containers without managing infrastructure.
  • Azure Container Registry (ACR): A private Docker registry service to store and manage your container images.

For most production workloads, AKS is the recommended choice. For simple tasks or event-driven scenarios, ACI might be more suitable.

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2. Set Up Your Environment

Before deploying, ensure you have the necessary tools and Azure resources in place.

  1. Install Azure CLI: The command-line interface for managing Azure resources.
  2. Install Docker: To build and run containers locally.
  3. Create an Azure Account: If you don't have one already.
  4. Create an Azure Resource Group: A logical container for your Azure resources.
$ az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus

3. Deploy Your First Container

Let's deploy a simple containerized web application. We'll use Azure Container Instances (ACI) for a quick start.

Using Azure Container Instances (ACI)

This is the simplest way to run a container on Azure. No orchestration needed!

$ az container create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name mywebcontainer --image mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/aci-helloworld --dns-name myhelloworld-xyz

After creation, you can access your web application via the provided DNS name.

Deploy with ACI

4. Explore Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

For more complex deployments, AKS provides a managed Kubernetes experience.

Setting up AKS

Creating an AKS cluster involves a few more steps. You'll need to install kubectl (Kubernetes command-line tool) and follow the AKS creation guide.

$ az aks create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster --node-count 1 --enable-addons monitoring --generate-ssh-keys

Connect to your cluster:

$ az aks get-credentials --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster
Deploy with AKS