Selecting Container Services in Azure

• Azure offers a broad and overlapping array of services that support applications based on Docker containers.
• Selecting poorly could add unnecessary cost and complexity or leave a container deployment unable to grow to meet demand.
• OS, type of application, and other criteria can help an organization decide.

Containers can enable organizations to distribute and deploy applications and the components they require in a reliable and reproducible way, with less overhead than deploying on VMs. Azure offers several services capable of hosting and managing container-based applications. These services can ease deployment of containerized applications for organizations that do not want to manage all aspects of their own environment, but customers should carefully consider which service, if any, best fits the deployment they are planning. (For background on Docker-style containers and containerized applications, see the sidebar “Understanding Docker Containers“.)