Containers and microservices have been redefining the way we approach
development of new applications and architectures for some time now,
but it's anything but new technology.
Containers have essentially been around since the 1970s,
when Unix systems first introduced the idea of changing the root directory of a
process and separating file access to create process isolation.
But the process back then was a little too mature in concept to be the rapidly
scalable and customizable system, we know and love today.
These days,
containerization and microservices have essentially grown to go hand-in-hand
with cloud technology,
almost every service offering and all the major cloud platforms is using
containers or microservices in some way,
which allows users to share and consume resources in incredible ways.
In this episode,
we're going to take a slightly closer look at some of the services Azure offers
in regards to containers and its orchestration counterpart Kubernetes.
This is Azure Level Up the show meant to help you gain that last skill point.
You need to learn your next cloud skill.
[Inaudible].
Containers are everywhere in Azure from being the backbone of popular platform
as a service offerings, to allowing you to run your own containers.
Azure has many offerings you can take advantage of to advance your own cloud
environment.
You can take advantage of services like Azure Container Registry to store and
manage your containers in Azure while using Azure Container Instances to deploy
and run your services without the need to manage an underlying server.
With close integrations with Docker and Microsoft having its own container
technology, your options for working with containers are plentiful.
If letting Azure manage the container layer as well is more your jam.
You can leverage services like App Service to offload the tedious work of
patching and load balancing so that you can focus on more important things like
maintaining your code or watching Lars new Llama cam.
Let's say you want to get super granular,
like you want one process that takes a heap of processing power to
run with all the resources that it could possibly need while also only running
for as long as absolutely necessary. Well, Azure Batch might be for you.
Azure Batch is a powerful job scheduler that gives the option of running large
operations, either on-demand or scheduled,
which can be defined based on your needs.
This allows you to focus on the code for your operations and let Azure worry
about the underlying dependencies based on the parameters you set in your jobs.
Kubernetes,
what sounds like an advanced race of cybernetic aliens here to enslave mankind
is actually the de facto standard for container and service management fun fact.
The reason its logo is a ship's wheel is because Kubernetes is actually the
Greek word for the helmsmen of a ship. Neat!
It's an important tool that allows you to focus on your app and its dependencies
while simplifying build delivery and scale while Kubernetes isn't the only
orchestration tool available on Azure, it's definitely the most widely used.
As it comes in two flavors for you to choose from Azure Kubernetes Service,
which is essentially Kubernetes as a Service and Red Hat OpenShift on Azure,
which is Kubernetes on Red Hat, on Azure,
you can decide which better fits your environment,
but both are powerful tools that allow you to focus on your application
lifecycle. Now you could also use Azure Service Fabric,
which is Microsoft's own management platform for containers and services.
However, this is Microsoft native,
which makes portability slightly more complex,
if you have multi-cloud or hybrid architectures. While,
Microsoft does have integrations in place to ease those situations.
It's still worth considering,
that aside Microsoft does use its own brand here as it uses Azure Service Fabric
to support its own container and service infrastructure.
So it's in constant development and always being improved upon.
So it's not unreasonable to expect top notch performance from the service.
So with all these services,
I'm sure you're aching to learn more about at least one of them. Well,
I have some good news for you. You may have heard,
we recently launched our new single platform,
which combines content from both A Cloud Guru and Linux Academy into one source
of knowledge for you to reap the benefits from.
Whether you're looking for the arcane wisdoms of containers,
to the dark magics of Kubernetes.
We happen to have courses that can help you with both.
We've included some recommendations in the description of the video.
If you want to know more. However,
if you're already familiar with these technologies,
you can always check out another one of our shows Kubernetes this Month,
where you can join Nigel Poulton,
as he explains the updates to Kubernetes and Docker,
similar to how we bring you updates here about Azure.
The main difference is he doesn't have llamas.
Well gurus, I think at this point,
you definitely have that last skill point to get the Containerization skill.
With this,
you can go and disrupt technology and your organization and truly save your
cloud, or at least so we hope. Legally speaking, I can't make any promises,
but you get the idea. But as we say here,
when we offload our catchphrases to literally containerized versions of
ourselves. Seek and you shall cloud, we'll see you next time gurus.