Azure Container Instances (ACI)

• Run containers without managing servers.
• For event-driven applications, quickly deploy from your container development pipelines, run data processing, and build jobs.
• Azure Container Instances is a regional service.

Features

• Containers have less overhead than VMs and can be deployed consistently.
• All the dependencies for an application are included in the container image.
• Applications running in containers can be deployed easily to multiple operating systems and hardware platforms.
• Select an image source using Quickstart images, Azure Container Registry, and Docker Hub.
• Create a container image only when you need it and process data on-demand.
• You can choose to always restart the container regardless of how it stopped, to only restart if it failed, to exit successfully, or to never restart.

• Enables you to set a command to be executed first when running the container.
• Resources can be tagged with values that you define, to help you organize and identify them.
• By default, Azure Container Instances are stateless.
• You can’t deploy an image from an on-premises registry to ACI.

Storage

• You can mount Azure Files shares in your ACI for persistent storage.
• To mount an Azure file share as a volume in Azure Container Instances, you need: Storage account name, Share name, and Storage account key.

Networking

• Choose between three networking options: Public, Private, and None.
• Private IP is not yet available for Windows Containers.
• None IP containers (logs) can still be accessed using the CLI.
• DNS name label: <tutorialsdojo>.<region>.azurecontainer.io

Security.

• Deploy Azure WAF in front of critical web applications hosted in ACI for additional inspection of incoming traffic.
• Use Azure Key Vault to safeguard encryption keys and secrets for containerized applications.

Pricing

• You pay based on what you need and get billed by the second.
• The assigned public IP addresses to your container group are billed.
• You are billed for each GB and vCPU your container group consumes.

Azure Container Instances (ACI) vs Functions:
https://tutorialsdojo.com/azure-container-instances-aci-vs-functions/

Want to learn more about Azure? Watch the official Microsoft Azure YouTube channel’s video series called Azure Tips and Tricks.

Sources:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-instances/container-instances-overview
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/container-instances/#overview