Azure Container Services and Creating a Container Host Virtual Machine

Introduction

 

This document will help you to learn about Azure Container Services and how to create a Container Host Virtual Machine.

 

Azure Container Services

 

Azure Container Service helps us to create, configure, manage, scale and leverage the virtual machines, which are preconfigured to run with containerized Applications. The open source tools used here allows us to move with large scale to deploy and manage the container based Applications under Microsoft Azure.

 

Azure Container Service leverages the Docker container format to ensure that your Application containers are fully portable. Azure Container Service supports Marathon and DC/OS or Docker Swarm, which allows us to scale our Applications with thousands of containers or even more than that.

 

Azure Container Service helps us with a container hosting world with the help of Open Sourcing tools and technologies, which are popular among developers and clients. We use API endpoints here, which can leverage any software, which is capable of talking to these endpoints.

 

Creating the Container Host VM

 

The physical Server or virtual machine, which hosts the Docker runtime environment and associated containers, is known as container host. You should have an Azure account to create a VM of Windows Server 2016 Core with Containers Tech Preview 4 image.

 

Pre-requisites

1. Microsoft Azure account
   (Click here to get a free trial Microsoft Azure account).

Follow the steps given below to create a Container Host VM.

 

Step 1

 

Log in to the Azure portal with your Azure credentials.

 

www.portal.azure.com

 

Azure portal home page looks, as shown below.

 

 

 

Step 2

 

Go to Marketplace and search for Windows Server 2016 core with the containers.

 

 

 

Create this container host VM by clicking Create.

 

 

 

Step 3

 

Configure with the information stated below, now for Basics.

 

 

 

Provide the information for VM size here.

 

 

 

Same procedure needs to be followed for Storage blade.

 

 

 

Now, your validation is passed and click OK.

 

 

 

You can now find the deployment it has undergone.

 

 

 

Note

 

Here are a few important features to be aware of in this Azure-based VM.

• VM runs Windows Server 2016 TP4 in the Server Core mode, meaning there is no GUI.
• The Windows containers feature is pre-installed, as is the Docker runtime environment.
• The image contains one pre-made Docker container, which runs Windows Server 2016 TP4 in the Server Core configuration

Now, the container is created.

 

 

 

Step 4

 

Click Connect and connect with help of the Remote Desktop Connectivity.

 

 

 

Enter the password for your account here.

 

 

 

This gets connected towards VM with Container, which was created using a secure remote session.

 

 

 

Once you are VM logged in, it is shown below.

 

 

 

Here, at Server Manager, you can find the containers have been installed.