Explore Multicloud Deployments with Microsoft’s ACI Connector for Kubernetes

In the final part of our look into Azure Container Instances (ACI), we will deploy a microservices application that spans Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure. This multicloud architecture is based on the ACI Connector for Kubernetes, which bridges the gap between a full-blown orchestration engine (Kubernetes) and serverless containers (ACI).

Azure Container Instances is designed to be a lightweight serverlessenvironment meant to run single-container workloads. The job of managing a microservices application composed of multiple containers is better handled by an orchestration engine like Kubernetes, Mesosphere DC/OS, or Docker in Swarm mode. A full-fledged container orchestrator handles tasks including scheduling, service discovery, scaling, health monitoring, logging, and much more. It provides end-to-end lifecycle management of microservices.

ACI handles the lifecycle of one instance at a time. It does not have advanced scheduling capabilities and other functions needed to tackle microservices. By bridging the gap between a container orchestrator and ACI, customers can get best of both worlds. To demonstrate this, Microsoft has built ACI Connector for Kubernetes as a reference implementation. It is possible to build similar connectors for other container management platforms.

When I encountered this project, the first thing that hit me was the integration of a Kubernetes cluster running in Google Cloud with Azure Container Instances. This tutorial gives you a glimpse of what is possible with ACI Connector for Kubernetes. Please note that this project is experimental that is not suitable for production environments.

Read the entire article at The New Stack

Janakiram MSV is an analyst, advisor, and architect. Follow him on Twitter,  Facebook and LinkedIn.