Container Services in Azure

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In addition to the company’s flagship Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Microsoft offers focused-purpose services that exist to support or simplify deployment of container-based applications. Azure Container Apps (ACA) allows customers to deploy Linux containers on a serverless, scalable platform without the overhead of managing a Kubernetes cluster, offering per-second billing and capabilities targeted for agentic AI development. Azure Container Instances (ACI) offers a simplified way to run Linux or Windows containers individually or in groups without deploying worker node VMs and can integrate with AKS to enable orchestration. Lastly, Azure Container Registry (ACR) enables customers to create and maintain private container registries that are used to store and deploy container images.

Product: Container Services in Azure

Azure Container Apps

Near Term (2026–2027)

Support for Confidential Compute in ACA is generally available, which can improve the security of container apps to help meet regulatory compliance requirements. It allows ACA workloads to use hardware-enforced isolation that protects sensitive data while it’s being processed and prevents unauthorized access to the underlying compute infrastructure.

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