Containers on AzureEvaluating the OptionsKyle Wilson

Azure TSP

kyle.wilson@microsoft.com

Containers in Azure

1st Party Services• App Services on Linux

Containers

• Container Instances (preview)

• Azure Container Services

• Azure Service Fabric

• Azure Batch

• Containers on IaaS VMs

3rd Party Services/Integrations• Docker on Azure

• OpenShift on Azure

• Cloud Foundry/PCF on Azure

• Others (Apprenda, etc.)

Service When To Use Notes

App Services on Linux with Containers You want to develop a web app and deploy via containers but get the App Services scaling benefits.

Best for standalone container solutions with a focus on web traffic 80/443.

• Does not provide multi-container management or orchestration

• Bring your own custom image with web framework/server.

Container Instances (preview) Quickly spin up a container with low administration and scaling planning, costs or effort.

Think of it as rapid containers as a service.

• Does not provide its own multi-container management or orchestration. (integrates with Kubernetes, etc.)

• Does not provide Docker daemon access

Azure Container Services You run orchestrated containers in the cloud without having to manage or administer the hosts, networking or storage. Azure is the backbone, and you pick your preferred orchestrator.

• 3 Choices: Kubernetes, Docker Swarm and DCOS• You have no direct control over the hosts, storage or

networking.

Azure Service Fabric You want to orchestrate both containers and individual processes (exes) in a highly scalable platform.

• Backbone service for many high scale Azure services like Cosmos DB, Azure SQL, etc.

• We provide the orchestration engine, networking, etc. • You have no direct control over the hosts, storage or

networking.

Azure Batch Used for high performance computing solutions where batch processing of computations across multiple nodes is needed.

3rd Party & Containers on Azure IaaS You want to have direct control over the VM hosts, architecture, etc.

You want to run a 3rd party container platform/orchestrator that is not directly supported by your PaaS services.

• Some 3rd party providers have officially supported templates and solutions that have been co-developed: OpenShift, Docker on Azure, etc.

App Services: Web Apps for Containers• Linux containers that inherit the goodness of

App Services (scaling, load balancing, staging, etc.)

• Built in container images that are maintained: Node.js, .NET Core, PHP or Ruby. You deploy the code we provide the image.

• Or deploy your own custom Docker Image including Java.

• Leverage Azure Container Registry or a publicly exposed private container registry

• Only exposes 1 port from the container (can be mapped)

Web App Containers Demo

Container Instances (preview)

• Rapid solution for spinning up a container

• Leverages the Azure Container Registry, Docker Hub or private registry for images

• Windows or Linux containers with the same API / CLI

• Specify the exact memory and cpu needs for your container (preview limits availability in various regions)

• Containers are isolated by the hypervisor

• Billed by the second

• Part of our “serverless” family of offerings

Container Instances Limitations

• Does not provide its own full orchestrator features, instead you could integrate with an orchestrator like Kubernetes (in preview)

• Built for rapid expansion and contraction so not as cost effective for stable state workloads typically run on dedicated hosts via ACS, ASF or IaaS

• No Docker Daemon and it’s related commands ☺

• Only targeted at long running services, it will auto-restart if the container runs to completion & exits

Container Instances Demo

Azure Container Services (ACS)

• Azure provides the compute, storage and networking fundamentals

• You pick your preferred open source contianer orchestration platform

• Kubernetes

• Docker Swarm (note not Docker Swarm Mode)

• DC/OS

• Linux containers for all 3 orchestrators, Windows containers in preview on Kubernetes (no mixing)

• You can have 1, 3 or 5 master nodes and up to 100 agent nodes

• Officially supported by Azure for setup/configuration

(Note: Inside the orchestrator support is not provided by Microsoft, but by the orchestrator source company or other external parties)

ACS EngineOpen Source Project

• ACS Engine is an open-source project that enables power users to customize the cluster configuration at every level.

• Ability to alter the configuration of both infrastructure and software

• No SLA for ACS Engine

• Support is handled through the open-source project on GitHub rather

• Supports interesting things like:

• Swarm Mode

• Large Clusters up to 1200 nodes

• Custom VNet usage

• Managed disks support (preview)

Azure Service Fabric

• Service Fabric works on any OS or in any cloud or on premise

• Microservices Orchestration for processes, Windows containers & Linux containers

• Mature and battle proven and used by many enterprise scale solutions including:• Xbox• SQL Azure• Cosmos DB• Azure Service Bus

• Supports executing your code as a compiled process (exe) so you can bring your own code base

• Key features include:• Rolling upgrades• Rollback process

Azure Batch

• Service for running large-scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) applications

• Supports both Windows and Linux OS options for execution

• Provides a high-scale job scheduling engine as a service

• When a batch job starts we provision the compute, load applications (like Docker), stage resource files and then execute the various job tasks in parallel.

• The scheduler tracks failures and queues/re-queues work

• Azure Batch Shipyard GitHub Project provides a simple way to configure the provisioning of containers on Azure Batch

• Use Case Examples • Financial risk modeling• Climate and hydrology data analysis• Image rendering, analysis, and processing• Media encoding and transcoding• Genetic sequence analysis• Engineering stress analysis• Software testing

OpenShift on Azure Today

• What is it?

RHEL Machines on Azure IaaS configured to run OpenShift (Supported Services, Validated Templates)

• Why?

Ability to support RHEL & Windows workloads on the same cloud platform (Azure)

Integrated support from Red Hat & Microsoft

Java EE Apps on JBOSS in a rich build, orchestration and execution system

.NET Core 2.0 Applications on OpenShift

Cloud Forms Integration with Azure

• OpenShift Test Drive – a free 4 hour lab to showcase OpenShift on Azure

• Marketplace - there is an OpenShift BYOL Template in the Marketplace. With BYOL OpenShift - Red Hat supports bringing your own licenses to Azure and registering machines with the Red Hat Subscription Manager through their Red Hat Cloud Access service

• RHEL Pay As You Go – there is also a RHEL Premium pay as you go instance you can deploy which will roll the compute + licensing costs into one fee

• Build Your Own – you can always roll your own OpenShift cluster on Azure IaaS (Azure Guide for OpenShift Origin & Red Hat Guidance for OpenShift on Azure)

Red Hat on Azure In The Future

• Windows Server Containers on OpenShift Container Platform (preview spring 2018)

• Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Azure (early 2018)

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure Stack

• SQL Server for Linux supported on RHEL and OpenShift containers

Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Azure

• What is it?

Ubuntu Linux machines on Azure IaaS VMs configured to run PCF components (Validated Templates, officially Supported)

Azure Cloud Provider Interface to communicate with Azure supporting services

• Why?

Java Microservice applications using Spring, Spring Cloud and Spring Boot support on Azure through Pivotal

High speed integration with Azure supporting services for your development solutions

Global reach through Azure’s 40 Regions

Speed To Market with pre-constructed templates and automation tools

Unlimited scale with Azure’s world class compute, networking and storage fabric

• Marketplace Template – a comprehensive template for deploying PCF, free for 90 days, but you must register a Pivotal Network Account see the details and our blog post

• Build Your Own - Pivotal has documentation to create your own cluster and a reference architecture you can review or you can use the open source Cloud Foundry implementation by following our documentation

Cloud Foundry & Azure Updates

• Microsoft joined the Cloud Foundry foundation (June 2017)

• Microsoft joined the Open Service Broker API working group

• Partners with supported Azure solutions: Pivotal, SAP Cloud Platform, GE Predix (coming)

• Released the Azure Cloud Provider Interface created to help BOSH integrate with Azure Infrastructure

• Released a VSTS Cloud Foundry Plugin (open source) for CI/CD pipelines

• Adding Log Analytics support for Cloud Foundry environments

What then shall we do?

• Get the slides here: aka.ms/azuremeetupcontainers

• Hands on Learning• App Service Containers: Quickstarts | Tutorials (with DBs)

• Container Instances: Quickstart | Tutorial

• Azure Container Services: Quickstart (Kubernetes) | Tutorial

• Comprehensive GitHub Lab for all the above

• Azure Service Fabric: Quickstarts | Tutorial

• RedHat OpenShift TestDrive (2.5 Hour Lab, 4 hour time limit)

• Pivotal Cloud Foundry (90 Day Eval, CAUTION: many cores)

Questions?