Cloud-native applied sciences like containers and Kubernetes are the way forward for utility growth. That’s why we’re honored to announce that Microsoft has been named a Leader within the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Container Management*. We imagine that this recognition validates our end-to-end method for growing and deploying enterprise-grade, cloud-native apps that run on Azure, in datacenters, or on the edge.
Gartner recognition of Microsoft as a Leader on this Magic Quadrant, we really feel, highlights the broad and deep integration of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with different Azure providers. Customers inform us that utilizing AKS for container administration helps them modernize current apps in levels, as time and finances allow, and creates a roadmap for brand new, cloud-native growth that takes benefit of Azure scale, safety, efficiency, and value optimization. Developers depend on autoscaling AKS clusters to satisfy probably the most difficult efficiency calls for, whereas absolutely managed Azure providers free groups from time-consuming infrastructure administration duties.
Innovate, deploy, and function Kubernetes seamlessly
Deploy and scale containers on managed Kubernetes
Customers have numerous environments they usually need to run containers anyplace. Our prospects run AKS on Azure and in hybrid configurations, utilizing Azure Stack HCI on-premises and Azure Arc to handle all of it.
Read the complete report to study extra about why Microsoft was named a Leader for container administration.
Scaling up means skilling up
Recently, we introduced at KubeCon North America 2023 and at Microsoft Ignite, the place we launched Microsoft Copilot for Azure (in preview). This AI-powered assistant makes it simple for builders to get the solutions they want and to work extra effectively, together with AKS.
Many builders on the conferences informed us that the mixing help in AKS makes adoption simpler as their organizations roll out bold digital transformation initiatives. Even although Kubernetes is designed to handle the complexity of many shifting components, that complexity has a studying curve. Container-related experience remains to be restricted, because the Gartner report factors out.
“As Kubernetes continues to become pervasive, a lot of teams find themselves at different steps of their adoption, skill set, or learning stage”
AKS Principal PM Lead Jorge Palma just lately posted. Gartner even cautions enterprises towards deploying container administration “without deep knowledge of developer requirements.”
Tools like Copilot for Azure assist builders do extra with Azure and AKS. Microsoft presents many extra sources to assist builders—irrespective of the place they’re within the adoption cycle. Here are only a few concepts:
- If you’re on the clean web page stage, get real-world examples and resolution concepts from our resolution architectures.
- Explore Kubernetes options and providers in Azure Marketplace, the place you’ll find click-through deployments to the Kubernetes platform and versatile billing fashions.
- To get impressed, learn how the event crew behind Forza Horizon 5 transformed providers to AKS in a couple of month—with none prior Kubernetes expertise—fueling the most important first week in Xbox Games Studio historical past.
- To enhance abilities, think about one of many skilled studying paths offered by Microsoft Learn, akin to Introduction to Kubernetes on Azure or Administer containers in Azure.
- To keep on prime of your deployment, evaluation these developer greatest practices.
Powering the AI revolution with AKS
Generative AI continues to rocket throughout the panorama—and it’s typically constructed on prime of Kubernetes. Cloud-native and AI are working collectively to gasoline innovation at scale, and AKS is a part of this revolution of clever apps. Developers can construct apps in AKS that devour Azure OpenAI Service as a part of the structure.
AI purposes typically include larger container photos, so AKS just lately added artifact streaming. Container photos may be streamed on to the nodes the place they’re operating a high-performance, on-demand protocol. That means pods are scheduled sooner and begin operating extra rapidly.
AI purposes additionally push the boundaries of scale, making value administration a prime precedence. Microsoft just lately introduced that groups can get extra visibility and transparency into cluster prices proper within the Azure portal. The value evaluation add-on for AKS (in preview) makes use of OpenCost to interrupt down underlying cluster infrastructure prices into particular Kubernetes models, akin to cluster and namespace.
In addition, organizations can run specialised machine studying workloads, like massive language fashions (LLMs), on AKS extra cheaply and with much less guide configuration. The new AI toolchain operator, a managed add-on primarily based on Kaito, simplifies the method of internet hosting and distributing open-source AI fashions and customised inferencing on AKS clusters. Another choice for enhancing cluster effectivity and prices is to make use of the brand new open-source supplier for operating Karpenter on AKS.
Microsoft additionally just lately introduced help for Kubernetes fleets, enabling platform directors to handle a number of AKS clusters at scale. Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager addresses the problem of staging updates throughout clusters in a protected and predictable means.
DevOps makes the wheels go spherical
As the Gartner report explains, “the combination of DevOps and container technology can be a powerful enabler for application development agility and speed, making DevOps skills the critical factor to deployment success.” DevOps drives high quality and promotes consistency with provisioning and administration practices, together with steady integration and steady deployment (CI/CD).
Yet constructing distributed purposes can nonetheless be a posh enterprise, which is why the AKS crew continues to search for methods to assist streamline this course of. For instance, Draft for AKS (in preview) helps streamline Kubernetes deployment, and new sensible defaults velocity up cluster configuration. In June 2023, we added Distributed Application Runtime (Dapr) APIs that assist builders write and implement easy, transportable, resilient, and secured microservices. To automate builds and deploy them to AKS clusters, Azure Pipelines offers CI/CD.
Developers utilizing Azure Container Apps will discover it even simpler to deploy code to the cloud and to run AI workloads. New “code-to-cloud” built-in cloud construct productiveness helps any developer construct and run their apps on Azure Container Apps—no container data required. In addition, the just lately launched touchdown zone accelerator offers a worthwhile reference for builders of cloud-native apps and microservices. And for compute-heavy workloads, like mannequin coaching and batch inferencing, devoted GPU workload profiles (in preview) present the facility.
Protecting all the pieces
According to Gartner, by 2026, the adoption of CSP-native platforms will propel 75% of container situations to be deployed inside public cloud environments, up from 50% in 2023. At KubeCon and Ignite, we heard IT, ops, and cybersecurity consultants from all over the world share their method to safety within the cloud. At Microsoft, we’re dedicated to offering our prospects with the instruments and sources they should defend all the pieces. For containers, which means safety measures all alongside the pipeline—from growth to runtime—and throughout hybrid and multicloud deployments.
At Ignite 2023, we introduced that new multicloud container safety is coming quickly to Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Defender cloud safety posture administration (CSPM) will prolong its superior agentless scanning, data-aware safety posture, cloud safety graph, and assault path evaluation capabilities to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), offering a single contextual view of cloud dangers throughout Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, GCP, and hybrid environments.
Security admins can even have higher visibility into the state of containerized purposes to allow them to prioritize misconfigurations and exposures of their deployments of Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service and Google Kubernetes Engine clusters.
The AKS documentation explains extra safety ideas for purposes and clusters, and the Microsoft Security weblog presents skilled protection on safety issues.
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Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Container Management, By Dennis Smith, Wataru Katsurashima, Michael Warrilow, Tony Iams, Richard Watson, 20 September 2023.