The Ultimate Guide to Azure Container Instances (ACI)

This large but comprehensive tutorial includes all steps to build an application with Azure Container instances (ACI). We register at Azure, create an ACI resource, dockerize our application, push it to an Azure Container registry and deploy multiple containers via docker-compose and alternatively via the Azure CLI (az deploy). We also enter the Azure Portal in order to debug our application via Container Logs, configure and monitor CPU and memory limits, delete and redeploy. We connect to an Azure Storage account for our application to persist files. Finally we create an URL for others to access our application.
00:00 Introduction
00:20 Who should use Azure Container Instances?
01:04 Registration and Payment
02:32 Create a Hello Word Application
10:53 Create an Azure Container Registry
13:23 Connect to the Container Registry
14:36 Push an image to the Container Registry
16:16 Dockerize your application and push it to the registry
18:13 Deployment to ACI via docker-compose
24:31 Deployment to ACI via Azure CLI (az deploy)
31:39 Persistent file storage with Azure Storage Accounts
35:59 Get an URL for your application with FQDN
38:16 Conclusion

[@namlessnightwalker]

Well done!!! Apprechiate the work and well organized and enriching content.

[@csatanarachchi]

I genuinely appreciate your candid effort to delve deeper into Azure Container Instances (ACI) and their practical utilization for rapidly deploying containerized applications in a cost-efficient manner👏

[@lexichdev]

Thank you, Michael, you saved me a lot of time!

[@mattomwit]

You helped me. This video was very useful. Thank you.

[@wilhelm8735]

Thanks for the tutorial. You covered information, which I couldnt find anywhere else. Greatly appreciated!
Grüße aus Berlin ;-)

[@arifusman6123]

amazing tutorial...i just started knowing ACI and this is great. Thank you @Michael Kißling

[@discotake]

I am glad to be helpful.

[@ramki9196]

Thank you so much! You definitely helped!!

[@simianinc]

Thank you for this. May I suggest you make your fonts larger in your demos. There's a lot of whitespace, and a lot of small text.

[@discotake]

Thank you very much for your input. My intention is to bring the best possible quality to my tutorials, and increasing the font size in order to be more convenient for small screens and low resolution devices is something I will take into account for the future.

[@jivaniarpit2961]

Hey I like this video but i have one question, can I open this azure container in vs code for development like we do with docker container.

[@EddieDemon]

Well, just what I needed. All I miss here is how one container connects to another. Is the internal DNS managed by ACI? And based off of the container name?

[@discotake]

There is no way to connect to another ACI container directly. You need to connect via the external URL of the other container as if you were a regular external client. When both ACI instances are physically in the same Azure Data Centre, I strongly assume that the IP packets will be routed internally without ever leaving the building, but even this is out of your control and managed by Azure.

[@EddieDemon]

@@discotake I see, so in that case ACA is a better option?

[@discotake]

I read your question again and I think I understood it now in the way that you are deploying multiple containers into a singe ACI instance. In this case you can just contact the other container via localhost:1234 (where 1234 is the opened port of the other container). But even if you would want to communicate with another ACI instance, you can do it interally via an AzureVirtual Network (learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-instances/container-instances-vnet) - so there is no need to use ACA@@EddieDemon

[@EddieDemon]

I see, thanks @@discotake! I’m still quite in the dark when to use which, both technically and financially. AFAIK ACA utilizes k8s and is somewhat cheaper by the hour, though it might be overkill for smaller applications. Right?