Azure Kubernetes Service Reaches General Availability

• Azure Kubernetes Service offers a managed Kubernetes service for orchestrating container-based production applications.
• Azure Container Service, the previous service, will be discontinued, and users should plan their migrations.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) was made generally available on June 13, 2018. The service deploys and updates applications and workloads that use containers, a method for packaging software. AKS is designed for multi-container workloads, typically for Web applications that require a persistent, managed environment. It complements the Azure Container Instances service, which targets short-term deployments (such as test deployments) that don’t require dedicated resources or orchestration.

Service Overview

Containers offer a method to package and distribute server applications and provide a level of isolation somewhat like traditional hardware virtualization, but with lower resource and deployment requirements. Multi-container workloads are typically deployed to a collection of Docker container hosts called a cluster, which is managed by orchestration software. Kubernetes is a popular open-source software solution for container orchestration.