I have some experience in using azure app services without docker. I did worked on k8 with docker. Now I am seeing an option to deploy containers in azure app services. As per my understanding app services internally use container and orchestration engine. Now someone can explain why this new docker option in azure app services? How it is going to help? When to use this option? Why I should bundle it as docker(extra effort eventhough it trivial)?
Azure App Service on Linux (Web App with built-in images)
The built-in image option running on Linux is an extension of a current Azure App Service offering, catering to developers who want to use FTP or GIT, deploy .NET Core, Node, PHP or Ruby applications to Azure App Service running on Linux
All of the built-in Docker images are open sourced on GitHub and available on DockerHub
Now someone can explain why this new docker option in the azure app
services?
Web App for Containers is catered more towards developers who want to have more control over, not just the code, but also the different packages, runtime framework, tooling etc. that are installed on their containers.
Customers of this offering prefer to package their code and dependencies into containers using various CI/CD systems like Jenkins, Maven, Travis CI or VSTS, alongside setting up continuous deployment webhooks with App Service.
This way you can easily deploy and run containerized applications that scale with your business.
How it is going to help?
This will make sure that the environment that you use locally, is
exactly the same as the one in the cloud.
Just pull container images from Docker Hub or a private Azure
Container Registry and Web App for Containers will deploy the containerized app with your preferred dependencies to production in seconds.
Automate and simplify your container image deployments through
continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) capabilities
with Docker Hub, Azure Container Registry, and Visual Studio Team
Services
Automatically scale vertically and horizontally based on application
needs. Granular scaling rules are available to handle peaks in
workload automatically while minimizing costs during off-peak times
When to use this option?
If you are so passionate/familiar with Docker/container then you can
use the Azure App service with the container.
If you are planning to host all your container in ACS(Azure Container
Service)/GitHub Repository then this service might be useful
You can refer to this blog for more details
Related
I am facing the following problem: I need to execute on-demand long running workers on Azure VMs. These workers are wrapped in a docker image.
So I looked at what Azure is offering and I seem to have the following two options:
Use a VM with docker-compose. This means I need to be able to programatically start a VM, run the docker image on it, and then shutdown the VM (the specs we use are quite expensive and we can't let it run indefinitely). However this means writing orchestration logic ourselves. Is there a service that maybe we could use to make life easier?
Setting up a k8s cluster. However, I am not sure how pricing works here. Would I be able to add the type of the VMs we use to the cluster, and then use the k8s API to start on-demand containers? How would I get priced in this case?
If the only thing you need are workers, there are a few more options you have. Which service suits best depends on the requirements you have. Based on what's in your question, I would think one of the following two might fit best:
Azure Container Instances
Azure Container Instances offers the fastest and simplest way to run a container in Azure, without having to manage any virtual machines and without having to adopt a higher-level service.
Azure Container Instances is a great solution for any scenario that can operate in isolated containers, including simple applications, task automation, and build jobs.
Azure Container Apps (preview)
Azure Container Apps enables you to run microservices and containerized applications on a serverless platform. Common uses of Azure Container Apps include:
Deploying API endpoints
Hosting background processing applications
Handling event-driven processing
Running microservices
According to Azure's Container services page, here are your options:
IF YOU WANT TO
USE THIS
Deploy and scale containers on managed Kubernetes
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Deploy and scale containers on managed Red Hat OpenShift
Azure Red Hat OpenShift
Build and deploy modern apps and microservices using serverless containers
Azure Container Apps
Execute event-driven, serverless code with an end-to-end development experience
Azure Functions
Run containerized web apps on Windows and Linux
Web App for Containers
Launch containers with hypervisor isolation
Azure Container Instances
Deploy and operate always-on, scalable, distributed apps
Azure Service Fabric
Build, store, secure, and replicate container images and artifacts Azure
Container Registry
EDIT:
Based on the comment
Let's say the only requirement is that I am able to use the resources on-demand, so I only end up spending the amount of money that would take for a certain job to finish execution. What would you use?
the answer would most probably be Container Apps, if the code you have available is not easily migrated to an Azure Function. The most important reason: they are Serverless, which means they scale to zero and you only pay for actual consumption. Next to that, you have to write limited to no orchestration logic, since the container apps can scale based on event sources.
Enables event-driven application architectures by supporting scale based on traffic and pulling from event sources like queues, including scale to zero.
Another great resource is Comparing Container Apps with other Azure container options.
Is it possible to host/deploy HashiCorp Vault on MS Azure App Services so that I can create, read, update and delete Vault secrets from my apps deployed on Azure App Services?
I can't find any documentation. I only know that I can host it on Windows virtual machine on-prem.
That's seems doable. I could think of a few options (#1 is specifically for AppServices as you have asked)
HashiCorpVault -> Docker -> App Service: I'm assuming you are familiar with Docker which is required for this step. You can create a container locally and deploy on AppService.
To do this, create a docker file and as a part of the build use brew to download Vault.
You will need to create your dockerfile in multi-steps to have Node and brew installed first.
Once that's done, the next step in build process is to get HashiCorp vault via brew https://www.vaultproject.io/downloads.
Alternatively, you could download the packages on your machine using brew, and then package your container.
You can run your container locally, make any configuration changes you prefer and create image once you are ready.
Once you have your image on your preferred repository, you could follow the Microsoft guide to deploy: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/modules/deploy-run-container-app-service/
HashiCorp Integration with Azure: It can be integrated with Azure https://www.hashicorp.com/integrations/microsoft and ready to be used at scale.
I think a better option would be to run Vault in an Azure Container Instance. You can find the official vault container here: https://github.com/hashicorp/docker-vault
The App Service platform execution environment differs from a local execution environment mainly due to multi-tenancy — because a single physical machine in the data center can be concurrently executing apps and services belonging to a large number of differing customers, resources are more constrained than in the case of an app running on a single machine. The sandbox mechanism mitigates the risk of service disruption due to resource contention and depletion in two ways: it (1) ensures that each app receives a minimum guarantee of resources and quality-of-service, and conversely (2) enforces limits so that an app can not disrupt other concurrently-executing apps on the same machine.
More Details on Azure App Service Sandbox: https://github.com/projectkudu/kudu/wiki/Azure-Web-App-sandbox
At the company that i work, they deploy applications to azure using Azure App Services.
This involves creating the App service manually, and setting up the pipelines manually.
My question is if there is another way to host and run applications in Azure without using App Services?
The reason for this is that i don't like the manually work when setting up a app service and all it's configuration.
Any suggestions?
What you actually need is setting up CI/CD pipelines for your application to create resource(AppService in this case) and deploy on them.
If you are new to Azure Devops, i would highly recommend to explore Devops starter service to deploy your application with few clicks and see how it creates resources and pipelines automatically
On the 2nd question, there are many compute options available on Azure such as Virtual Machines , AKS (Containers Orchestration) , Container instances etc.
You can explore those compute options using the decision tree here
I need to gather different kinds of logs:
Logs of applications running into docker machines orchestrated by Kubernetes.
Logs differents from metrics.
Which tool is more appropriate to do that?
My infrastructure is composed by Kubernetes orchestring docker machines installed in Microsoft azure (using ACS engine and RPM).
You can use Application Insights. App Insights can be used to store logging/monitoring for Docker Apps easily
See this blog for understanding how Application insights support microservices and containers.
You can easily pull the microsoft/applicationinsigthts image from docker hub and start using it.
Here the pricing calculator for application insights (Microsoft will give 5GB of Storage for logs free for every month)
I'm pretty new to Azure, so for the sake of learning, I have deployed Node.js applications in Azure both as Docker containers and Azure web apps on Linux. Since Azure web apps are containers anyway, is there any good reason why I should use them instead of my own containers, which I have better control over?
One problem I stumbled upon was that you have to take quite a few things into account with the preconfigured containers in Azure web apps, some of that described here. If I instead use my own Docker containers, I don't have to take the extra steps that are sometimes required to get your Node.js application with its dependencies up and running as an Azure web app.
Am I missing something, or is it as it now seems to me, less work to deploy my apps in Azure as Docker containers?
Sebastian
I am not 100% sure but I think there is a difference in the security updates of application SW (e.g. NodeJs). When you use a custom docker image you might be responsible for keeping the containers up to date.