Containerizing Workloads: ACR, ACI, and Azure Container Apps

# Containerizing Workloads: ACR, ACI, and Azure Container Apps *This article is Part 1, Chapter 1.4 of the **AZ-204 Exam Refresher** series. We wrap up the compute domain by comparing Azure's three main container services: Container Registry for storing images, Container Instances for quick isolated runs, and Container Apps for scalable microservices.* --- ## Introduction Containers are the shipping containers of software — pack your app and its dependencies into a standardized box, and it runs the same everywhere. Azure offers a layered set of services around containers, each solving a different problem. The confusion for most developers is knowing which service to reach for: - **ACR** = where you *store* images (like Docker Hub, but private and on Azure) - **ACI** = where you *run* a container quickly, no cluster needed - **ACA** = where you *deploy* scalable, production microservices with event-driven autoscaling --- ## Core Concepts ### Azure Container Registry (ACR) ACR is a managed, private Docker registry. Instead of pushing to Docker Hub, you push to your own Azure-hosted registry with built-in geo-replication, vulnerability scanning, and RBAC integration. ```bash # Create a registry az acr create --resource-group myRG --name myRegistry --sku Standard # Build and push directly from source (no local Docker needed) az acr build --registry myRegistry --image myapp:v1 . # Log in for local docker push az acr login --name myRegistry docker tag myapp:latest myreg