In this article, I will show you how to create a Windows Container in Microsoft Azure using Azure App Service (preview) service that was released as a public preview today.
The new feature was just released as a public preview and I decided to try and show you how easy it is to create a Windows Container in Azure without settings up a Container host \ cluster.
Windows Containers in Azure
The new service now brings Windows Containers to Microsoft Azure like AKS by simplifying the deployment of containers without installing a Container host as a Virtual Machine.
With the public release, the Windows Containers Images are supported
- microsoft/iis:windowsservercore-ltsc2016, latest
- microsoft/iis:nanoserver-sac2016
- microsoft/aspnet:4.7.2-windowsservercore-ltsc2016, 4.7.2, latest
- microsoft/dotnet:2.1-aspnetcore-runtime
- microsoft/dotnet:2.1-sdk
Features
- Deploy images directory from Docker Hub, Azure Container Registry or private registry.
- Web apps can be scaled easily using auto-scale
- Win-Rm access to containers (disabled by default)
- Allow SSL only and add custom domain \ Certificate
I have to say that I was excited to see this service going public because up until now deploying Windows Containers was a process that involved many steps.
Get started
To get started, I will use the Microsoft Azure Portal App Services icon
Next, I will search for Web App for Containers
I will create my Web App and specify Windows (Preview) Containers as the OS which will allow me to use Windows Containers.
From the App Service plan, I will select a plan, In my case, I will PC2 which gives me 2x Cores and 8GB of RAM memory.
Because this is a new feature Azure gives 50% discount on Windows Container for a limited time.
Images
From the container Settings page, I will select the image location and as you can see I have a few options.
I will go ahead and use the Microsoft/iis:latest image to run an IIS server
I will click create to start the build process of my Windows Container
Access the Container
To access the container I will click on the Web App and settings and click on URL
I also modify some of the settings from the Application Settings menu
After I click on the container it opens my browser and shows me the IIS welcome page.
In my next article, I will show you how to connect to a Windows Container using Win-RM.
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