Azure Container Service Focuses on Kubernetes

• A major revision of Azure Container Service offers managed Kubernetes orchestration and is the future of the service.
• The previous Azure Container Service will eventually be retired, which will require customers to migrate.
• Enterprise editions of orchestration solutions like DC/OS and Docker Swarm will be offered in the Azure Marketplace.

Service Overview

Azure Container Service, offered as ACS since 2016, allows organizations to deploy a Docker container hosting environment on a collection of Azure VMs called a cluster. For more information about containers, see the sidebar “Understanding Docker Containers“.

A cluster includes multiple VMs called agents that host containers and one or more VMs called masters that run orchestration software. Orchestration software coordinates the deployment, scaling, and upgrades of containers running on agents within the cluster. DC/OS, Docker Swarm, and Kubernetes are all commonly used orchestration solutions, but since early 2017, Kubernetes has become the most broadly used.