Get started with container architecture design

Containers are the standard for packaging and deploying modern applications. Azure provides a comprehensive set of container services that range from fully managed Kubernetes clusters to serverless container platforms. Whether you're modernizing existing applications, building cloud-native microservices, or running stateful workloads, Azure container services provide the flexibility, portability, and scalability that your organization needs.

Choosing the right container platform depends on your workload requirements, operational expertise, and business goals. Key considerations include orchestration complexity, scaling requirements, networking needs, and the level of control that you want over the underlying infrastructure. Azure containers span infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and serverless models, so you can select the approach that best suits your architecture.

Azure services for containers

Azure provides a range of services for containers:

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): Fully managed Kubernetes service for deploying and managing containerized applications with enterprise-grade security and governance.

• Azure Container Apps: Serverless container platform for running microservices and containerized applications without managing infrastructure.

• Azure Container Instances: Fast and simple way to run containers without orchestration for event-driven applications and batch jobs.

• Azure Container Registry: Private registry service for building, storing, and managing container images and artifacts.

• Azure Red Hat OpenShift: Fully managed OpenShift service for enterprises that require Red Hat support and additional platform capabilities.

Architecture

Download a Visio file of this architecture.

The previous diagram demonstrates a typical basic or baseline container implementation. For real-world solutions that you can build in Azure, see Explore container guides, architectures, and solution ideas.

Explore container guides, architectures, and solution ideas

The articles in this section include guides and fully developed architectures that you can deploy in Azure and expand to production-grade solutions. Solution ideas demonstrate implementation patterns and possibilities to consider as you plan your container proof-of-concept (POC) development. These articles can help you decide how to use container technologies in Azure.

Select a container service

The following articles help you evaluate and select the best container technologies for your workload requirements:

• Choose an Azure container service: Decision tree for selecting the right container platform.

• Architectural considerations for choosing an Azure container service: Detailed considerations for container service selection.

• Choose a Kubernetes at the edge compute option: Compare options for running Kubernetes at the edge.

Container guides

• Microservices architecture style: Design principles for microservices.

• Design a microservices architecture: Step-by-step guidance for microservices design.

Kubernetes-based hosting

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) - Plan your design and operations: Start here to plan your AKS design and operations.

Kubernetes solution ideas

• Data streaming with AKS: Real-time data streaming architectures that use AKS.

Kubernetes architectures

Use the recommendations in the following architectures when designing your workload:

Application architectures

• Microservices architecture on Azure Kubernetes Service: Design and deploy microservices on AKS.

• Advanced Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) microservices architecture: Advanced patterns for complex microservices workloads.

Infrastructure architectures

• Baseline architecture for an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster: Production-ready baseline architecture for AKS.

• AKS baseline for multiregion clusters: Deploy AKS across multiple regions for HA.

• Use Azure Red Hat OpenShift in the financial services industry: OpenShift for regulated financial workloads.

• Build a CI/CD pipeline for microservices on Kubernetes by using Azure DevOps and Helm: Build robust CI/CD pipelines for Kubernetes microservices.

Hybrid and edge architectures

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) baseline architecture for Azure Local: Design a baseline architecture for AKS that runs on Azure Local or uses AKS on bare metal as an alternative deployment option.

• Deploy containerized apps with AKS Hybrid and Edge by using GitOps: Build containerized app deployment pipelines for AKS Hybrid and Edge by using Azure Arc and GitOps, and use Flux automation for on-premises Kubernetes clusters.

Kubernetes guides

The following guides provide recommendations on cross-cutting concerns in your Kubernetes workload:

Application guides

• High availability for multitier AKS applications: Design patterns for highly available AKS applications.

• Build a CI/CD pipeline for AKS apps by using Azure Pipelines: Implement CI/CD for AKS.

• GitOps for Azure Kubernetes Service: Use GitOps practices to manage AKS deployments.

Infrastructure guides

• Access an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) API server: Secure access patterns for AKS API servers.

• Blue-green deployment of AKS clusters: Implement zero-downtime deployments by using blue-green strategies.

• Use Azure Firewall to help protect an AKS cluster: Secure AKS clusters by using Azure Firewall.

• Use Azure Front Door to secure AKS workloads: Global load balancing and security for AKS.

• Use Application Gateway for Containers with a multitenant Azure Kubernetes Service cluster: Use Application Gateway for Containers with your AKS cluster to expose microservice-based applications to the internet.

• Use Azure Kubernetes Service to host GPU-based workloads: Run GPU workloads on AKS for AI and machine learning scenarios.

AKS day-2 operations guide

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) day-2 operations guide: Learn about AKS day-2 operations, such as triage, patching, upgrading, and troubleshooting.

• Backup and recovery for AKS: Protect your cluster configuration and workloads.

• Patch and upgrade Azure Kubernetes Service worker nodes and Kubernetes versions: Keep clusters secure and up-to-date.

• Troubleshoot network problems in AKS clusters: Diagnose and resolve network problems.

• Monitor AKS by using Azure Monitor: Collect and analyze telemetry from your clusters.

• Common issues: Troubleshoot common AKS issues.

Triage practices

• Triage practices for AKS operations: Systematic approach to troubleshooting AKS problems.

• Evaluate AKS cluster health: Check the overall health of an AKS cluster as part of a triage step.

• Examine node and pod health: Examine the health of AKS worker nodes and pods and resolve problems.

• Monitor workload deployments: Check whether workload deployments and DaemonSet features are running properly.

• Validate admission controllers: Verify that the admission controllers are working as expected.

• Verify the connection to the container registry: Verify the connection to a container registry.

PaaS container hosting

Azure Container Apps and Azure Container Instances provide serverless container platforms that abstract infrastructure management:

PaaS container architectures

• Deploy Microservices to Azure Container Apps: Build microservices by using Container Apps.

• Deploy microservices with Azure Container Apps and Dapr: Event-driven microservices that use Dapr and KEDA on Container Apps.

Organizational readiness

Organizations at the beginning of the cloud adoption process can use the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure to access proven guidance that accelerates cloud adoption.

To help ensure the quality of your container solution on Azure, follow the guidance in the Azure Well-Architected Framework. The Well-Architected Framework provides prescriptive guidance for organizations that seek architectural excellence and describes how to design, provision, and monitor cost-optimized Azure solutions. For container-specific guidance, see the following Well-Architected Framework service guides:

• Container Apps
• AKS

Best practices

Follow these best practices to improve the reliability, security, cost effectiveness, performance, and operational quality of your container workloads on Azure:

• Autoscaling best practices: Design horizontal scaling strategies, select scaling signals, and plan safe scale-in behavior.

• Background jobs guidance: Implement background processing for long-running tasks.

• Caching guidance: Improve performance and reduce load on back-end systems.

Cost Optimization

Managing container costs on Azure requires you to understand your usage patterns and select the right pricing models:

• Azure Reservations: Save up to 72% on AKS node virtual machines (VMs) with one-year or three-year commitments.

• Azure spot VMs for AKS: Use spot node pools for interruptible workloads at significant discounts.

• Azure savings plan for compute: Flexible pricing across VMs, Container Instances, and other compute services.

• Rightsize resources: Use Azure Advisor recommendations to identify underutilized nodes and optimize pod resource requests.

• Container Apps consumption plan: Pay only for resources consumed during request processing.

Container Apps operations

Container Apps reduces operational overhead with managed infrastructure, but you need to monitor and manage your applications:

• Monitor Container Apps: Use Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights for observability.

• Health probes: Configure liveness, readiness, and startup probes for container health.

• Revisions and traffic splitting: Manage application versions and implement blue-green deployments.

• Quotas and limits: Understand service limits and plan capacity accordingly.

Stay current with containers

Azure container services evolve to address modern application challenges. Stay informed about the latest updates and features.

To stay current with key container services, see the following articles:

• AKS release notes
• What's new in Container Apps

Other resources

The following resources can help you discover more about containers.

• Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes: Manage Kubernetes clusters that run anywhere by using Azure Arc.

• AKS enabled by Azure Arc: Run AKS on Azure Local and Windows Server.

• Azure Arc hybrid management and deployment for Kubernetes clusters: Manage Kubernetes clusters across environments.

• Get started with Azure hybrid and adaptive cloud architecture: Overview of hybrid solutions on Azure.

• AKS on Azure Local baseline architecture: Production-ready AKS on Azure Local deployment.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud professionals

To help you get started quickly, the following articles compare Azure container options to other cloud services and provide migration guidance:

• Containers and container orchestrators on Azure and AWS: Compare Azure and AWS container services.

• Azure for AWS professionals: Overview of Azure for professionals familiar with AWS.

• Google Cloud to Azure services comparison: Compare Azure and Google Cloud container services.