Containers (ACI, ACR & AKS)
The container ladder from single-container ACI through ACR image hosting to managed Kubernetes and Container Apps.
Readiness
0%
2h 10m baseline
Exam memorization points
- Azure Container Instances runs a container or a container group in seconds with no orchestrator - ideal for short jobs and simple bursts.
- A container group shares a lifecycle, a network namespace and optionally a mounted volume.
- Azure Container Registry SKUs: Basic, Standard and Premium. Only Premium supports geo-replication, private link and content trust.
- The ACR admin account is disabled by default; the recommended pattern is a managed identity with the AcrPull role.
- AKS gives you a managed control plane (free or standard tier) and agent node pools; system node pools host critical pods, user node pools host workloads.
- Azure Container Apps is the serverless option with revision-based deployments and event-driven scaling.
Traps & distractors
- Choosing ACI for a multi-service application. ACI has no built-in service discovery, rescheduling or rolling upgrade.
- Forgetting that AKS nodes are billed even when no pods are running.
- Using ACR Basic and then trying to enable geo-replication or a private endpoint - both need Premium.
- Assuming AKS ships an ingress controller by default. You must install one or enable the application routing add-on.
- Mixing up node pool upgrades (replace node images) with control plane upgrades (managed by Azure).
Suggested lab
Build, run and scale a container
Walk the full path from image build to orchestrator.
- 1Create a Basic ACR and build an image in the cloud with az acr build (no local Docker required).
- 2Deploy that image to an Azure Container Instance and read the container logs.
- 3Create a small AKS cluster with one system node pool and add a user node pool.
- 4Deploy two replicas with a LoadBalancer service and scale the deployment up and down.
- 5Grant the AKS kubelet identity AcrPull on the registry and confirm image pulls no longer need credentials.
Microsoft Learn
- Azure Container Instances overviewdoc
- Search Microsoft Learn: Azure Container Registry SKUs AKS node pools Container Appssearch
Live Microsoft Learn ingestion is a Sprint 2 item; until then links are curated and the search fallback always resolves.
Status
No time invested yet. Baseline assumptions only.
Self-assessed mastery
0%
High priority
Strong exam value. Schedule this week.
- Exam importance80% × 30% = 24.0
Learner-agnostic frequency on the real exam (4/5).
- Blueprint weight100% × 25% = 25.0
This topic's domain carries 22.5% of the exam objectives.
- Dependency leverage0% × 20% = 0.0
Nothing else in the graph depends on this topic.
- Current gap100% × 25% = 25.0
Readiness is 0%, so 100% of the topic is still uncovered.
Exam Priority Score = 30% importance + 25% blueprint + 20% dependency + 25% gap. Importance is exam frequency, blueprint is the domain's official exam weight, dependency is how many later topics this one unlocks, and gap is how far you currently are from ready.
Unlocks next
Leaf topic - nothing depends on it.
Baseline study time
2h 10m
Complexity
4 / 5
Remaining to target
1h 51m
Status weight
0%
Topics: container, aci, acr, aks, kubernetes, container group, container apps
Weak neighbours in Compute