Public Preview: Standby Pools for Azure Container Instances

Microsoft

Nov 19, 2024

Today we are announcing the public preview of Standby Pools for Azure Container Instances.

Standby Pools for Azure Container Instances enable you to create a pool of pre-provisioned container groups that can be used in response to incoming traffic. The container groups in the pool are fully provisioned, initialized, and ready to receive work.

Key Benefits

Containers are fully provisioned and ready.
Apply configurations using config maps without incurring a restart.
Utilize a container group profile to easily automate container requests and creates.
Support for confidential containers, manage identity and zones.

Create and manage a standby pool

1) Create a container group profile

Managing and utilizing a standby pool of containers is simple with the use of a container group profile. The container group profile tells the standby pool how to configure the containers in the pool.

az container container-group-profile create \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --name myContainerGroupProfile \
    --location WestCentralUS \
    --image nginx \
    --os-type Linux \ 
    --ip-address Public \ 
    --ports 8000 \ 
    --cpu 1 \
    --memory 1.5 \
    --restart-policy Never

2) Create a standby pool

Using the information from the container group profile, a standby pool can be created by setting a few variables and referencing the container profile.

az standby-container-group-pool create \
   --resource-group myResourceGroup 
   --location WestCentralUS \
   --name myStandbyPool \
   --max-ready-capacity 20 \
   --refill-policy always \
   --container-profile-id "/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.ContainerInstance/containerGroupProfiles/myContainerGroupProfile"

3) Request a container from the standby pool

When you want a container from the pool, request that container using a new container create command referencing the container group profile and the standby pool. If a container is available in the pool, it will be taken from the pool, and configurations can be applied using a config map.

az container create \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --name myContainer \ 
    --location WestCentralUS \
    --config-map key1=value1 key2=value2 \
    --container-group-profile-id "/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.ContainerInstance/containerGroupProfiles/myContainerGroupProfile" \
    --container-group-profile-revision 1 \
    --standby-pool-profile-id "/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.StandbyPool/standbyContainerGroupPools/myStandbyPool"