Azure Container Apps

In the Ultra Transcenders books

AZ-305AZ-104AZ-900AI-200

Each book explains Azure Container Apps in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.

Terms in this definition

• Container

  Something that groups data. Blob Storage containers sit inside a storage account and hold blobs much as folders hold files; Cosmos DB containers hold items and set the scope for partitioning and throughput.

• KEDA

  Kubernetes Event-driven Autoscaling: drives the HPA with metrics from event sources such as queues and streams to scale pods. AKS offers it as an add-on, and Azure Container Apps relies on it for scaling.

• WHERE

  Limits a SELECT, UPDATE or DELETE to just the rows meeting a condition. Omit it, and the statement hits every row.

• Agents (classic) API

  First-generation Foundry Agent Service API, based on threads, messages and runs. It is deprecated, replaced by conversations and responses, and retires on 31 March 2027.

• Zone-redundant

  Distributed over every availability zone in a region, allowing it to withstand losing one zone; a StandardV2 NAT gateway is an example.

Related terms

• Azure NAT Gateway

  Gives every resource in a subnet a managed way out to the internet through one or more fixed public IP addresses, while accepting no unsolicited inbound connections. Azure Container Apps can use it only when the environment is a workload profiles one.

• Container Apps environment

  Boundary that groups Azure Container Apps for security, isolation and networking; decisions about workload profiles versus Consumption only, a custom VNet, and internal or external access can't be changed after creation.

• Container Apps environments

  Each one gives Azure Container Apps an isolated boundary in its own VNet and can host Consumption as well as Dedicated workload profiles; its network setup can't be altered after creation.

• Dapr components

  Connect Dapr APIs in Azure Container Apps to the services behind them, such as a state store on Cosmos DB or pub/sub on Service Bus. They are defined at environment level, and each one's scopes list names the Dapr app IDs allowed to load it.

• Scale to zero

  Some serverless platforms, including the Functions Flex Consumption plan and Azure Container Apps, can drop to no running instances during idle periods, so compute costs nothing until an event or request turns up.