Similarities between Azure Containers and Windows 2016 Server containers

[Deleted]

So, is this Containers for Dummies? I certainly hope so! My interest is how Azure Containers and Windows 2016 Server containers are similar, and how they can work together to provide a hybrid development / deployment environment (e.g. I'd like to do development in Azure platforms, but have specific requirements to deploy on a dedicated hardware platform for relatively small scale systems.

[#2]

Bill - what Azure platforms are you referring to? There are different types of container services on Azure including some supporting Windows Server 2016 containers.  How do you plan to manage your containers after you deploy locally on your own hardware?

[#3]

I envision using Azure Cloud services directly from Microsoft (e.g. not on-premise hosting) for a virtual development environment. Deployment for customer systems looks like running the containerized-app on a dedicated on premise hardware set, a relatively small scale system. Container management and how things are maintained is certainly one of the open questions where I need to know more.

[#4]

Bill - If I understand correctly, you'd like to leverage Azure's container related tooling and infrastructure support for your development work. That could be Azure Service Fabric, Azure Container Services, Azure Container Instance, Azure Kubernetes Services etc. Once the development is done in that virtual environment with Azure services,  you wanted to deploy on premise customized hardware, and will also manage and maintain yourself. Right?

This flow is interesting and is opposite to the flows that I am more familiar with: develop locally and/or on cloud and deploy to cloud. I am glad to learn this and add to the Enterprise Developer experience that I am driving at.

My intuition is this is doable but I haven't done this myself and haven't seen others done this yet. I am new to the Container team so I am learning with the community too.

My suggestion is you can start trying out those Azure container related services. Azure Service Fabric might be a good option because Service Fabric does have an on premise option for customers to manage and deploy on their own. 

[#5]

Robert - just realized there is a live webinar now on "Migrate to Azure with Windows Containers" which could be helpful for you. Here is the link of this webinar, not sure you can view on demand later or not:

Migrate to Azure with Windows Containers.

 This Ignite session might be helpful too:

https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions/53622?source=sessions

"Modernizing existing .NET applications with Windows Containers and Azure cloud"