Azure Container Instances (ACI)

ACI is a solution for any scenario that can operate in isolated containers, including simple applications, task automation, and build jobs.

You don't have to manage VMs.

Azure Container Instances is a [[paas]] service.

You can upload your single containers and have them run in the cloud in a single pod.

Concepts like scaling, load balancing, and certificates are not provided with ACI containers. For example, to scale to five container instances, you create five distinct container instances.

If you need a more complex orchestrators, you should use [[azure-kubernetes-service]].

You can deploy ACI by using [[arm-templates]] (best suited for complex scenarios) or a YAML file (when you just have one container instance).

Benefits of ACI

Fast startup: ACI can start containers in Azure in seconds, without the need to provision and manage VMs

Container access: ACI enables exposing your [[aci-container-group]] directly to the internet with an IP address and a fully qualified domain name ([[FQDN]])

Hypervisor-level security: Isolate your application as completely as it would be in a VM.

Customer data: The ACI service stores the minimum customer data required to ensure your container groups are running as expected.

Custom sizes: ACI provides optimum utilization by allowing exact specifications of CPU cores and memory.

Persistent storage: Mount Azure Files shares directly to a container to retrieve and persist state.

Linux and Windows: Schedule both Windows and Linux containers using the same API.