Choose an Azure compute service

Azure App Service
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Azure offers many ways to host your application code. The term compute refers to the hosting model for the resources that your application runs on. This article helps choose a compute service for your application.

Choose a candidate service

Use the following flowchart to select a candidate compute service.

Diagram that shows a decision tree for Azure compute services.

Download a Visio file of this decision tree.

This diagram refers to two migration strategies:

  • Lift and shift: A strategy for migrating a workload to the cloud without redesigning the application or making code changes. It's also called rehosting. For more information, see Azure migration and modernization center.
  • Cloud optimized: A strategy for migrating to the cloud by refactoring an application to take advantage of cloud-native features and capabilities.

The output from this flowchart is your starting point. Next, evaluate the service to see if it meets your needs.

This article includes several tables that can help you choose a service. The initial candidate from the flowchart might be unsuitable for your application or workload. In that case, expand your analysis to include other compute services.

If your application consists of multiple workloads, evaluate each workload separately. A complete solution can incorporate two or more compute services.

Understand the basic features

If you're not familiar with the Azure service selected in the previous section, see this overview documentation:

  • Azure Virtual Machines: A service where you deploy and manage virtual machines (VMs) inside an Azure virtual network.
  • Azure App Service: A managed service for hosting web apps, mobile app back ends, RESTful APIs, or automated business processes.
  • Azure Functions: A managed function as a service.
  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): A managed Kubernetes service for running containerized applications.
  • Azure Container Apps: A managed service built on Kubernetes, which simplifies the deployment of containerized applications in a serverless environment.
  • Azure Container Instances: This service is a fast and simple way to run a container in Azure. You don't have to provision any VMs or adopt a higher-level service.
  • Azure Red Hat OpenShift: A fully managed OpenShift cluster for running containers in production with Kubernetes.
  • Azure Spring Apps: A managed service designed and optimized for hosting Spring Boot apps.
  • Azure Service Fabric: A distributed systems platform that can run in many environments, including Azure or on-premises.
  • Azure Batch: A managed service for running large-scale parallel and high-performance computing (HPC) applications.

Understand the hosting models

For hosting models, cloud services fall into three categories:

  • Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Lets you provision VMs along with the associated networking and storage components. Then you can deploy whatever software and applications you want onto those VMs. This model is the closest to a traditional on-premises environment. Microsoft manages the infrastructure. You still manage the VMs.

  • Platform as a service (PaaS): Provides a managed hosting environment where you can deploy your application without needing to manage VMs or networking resources. Azure App Service and Azure Container Apps are PaaS services.

  • Functions as a service (FaaS): Lets you deploy your code to the service, which automatically runs it. Azure Functions is a FaaS service.

    Note

    Azure Functions is an Azure serverless compute offering. To see how this service compares with other Azure serverless offerings, such as Logic Apps, which provides serverless workflows, see Choose the right integration and automation services in Azure.

There's a spectrum from IaaS to pure PaaS. For example, Azure VMs can automatically scale by using virtual machine scale sets. This capability isn't strictly a PaaS, but it's the type of management feature found in PaaS.

There's a tradeoff between control and ease of management. IaaS gives the most control, flexibility, and portability, but you have to provision, configure, and manage the VMs and network components you create. FaaS services automatically manage nearly all aspects of running an application. PaaS falls somewhere in between.

Service Application composition Density Minimum number of nodes State management Web hosting
Azure Virtual Machines Agnostic Agnostic 1 2 Stateless or stateful Agnostic
Azure App Service Applications, containers Multiple apps per instance by using App Service plan 1 Stateless Built in
Azure Functions Functions, containers Serverless 1 Serverless 1 Stateless or stateful 6 Not applicable
Azure Kubernetes Service Containers Multiple containers per node 3 3 Stateless or stateful Agnostic
Azure Container Apps Containers Serverless Serverless Stateless or stateful Agnostic
Azure Container Instances Containers No dedicated instances No dedicated nodes Stateless Agnostic
Azure Red Hat OpenShift Containers Multiple containers per node 6 5 Stateless or stateful Agnostic
Azure Spring Apps Applications, microservices Multiple apps per service instance 2 Stateless Built in
Azure Service Fabric Services, guest executables, containers Multiple services per VM 5 3 Stateless or stateful Agnostic
Azure Batch Scheduled jobs Multiple apps per VM 1 4 Stateless No

Notes

  1. If you're using a Consumption plan. For an App Service plan, functions run on the VMs allocated for your App Service plan. See Choose the correct service plan for Azure Functions.
  2. Higher service-level agreement (SLA) with two or more instances.
  3. Recommended for production environments.
  4. Can scale down to zero after job completes.
  5. Three for primary nodes and three for worker nodes.
  6. When using Durable Functions.

Networking

Service Virtual network integration Hybrid connectivity
Azure Virtual Machines Supported Supported
Azure App Service Supported 1 Supported 2
Azure Functions Supported 1 Supported 3
Azure Kubernetes Service Supported Supported
Azure Container Apps Supported Supported
Azure Container Instances Supported Supported
Azure Red Hat OpenShift Supported Supported
Azure Spring Apps Supported Supported
Azure Service Fabric Supported Supported
Azure Batch Supported Supported

Notes

  1. Requires App Service Environment.
  2. Use Azure App Service Hybrid Connections.
  3. Requires App Service plan or Azure Functions Premium plan.

DevOps

Service Local debugging Programming model Application update
Azure Virtual Machines Agnostic Agnostic No built-in support
Azure App Service IIS Express, others 1 Web and API applications, WebJobs for background tasks Deployment slots
Azure Functions Visual Studio or Azure Functions CLI Serverless, event-driven Deployment slots
Azure Kubernetes Service Minikube, Docker, others Agnostic Rolling update
Azure Container Apps Local container runtime Agnostic Revision management
Azure Container Instances Local container runtime Agnostic Not applicable
Azure Red Hat OpenShift Minikube, Docker, others Agnostic Rolling update
Azure Spring Apps Visual Studio Code, Intellij, Eclipse Spring Boot, Steeltoe Rolling upgrade, blue-green deployment
Azure Service Fabric Local node cluster Guest executable, Service model, Actor model, Containers Rolling upgrade (per service)
Azure Batch Not supported Command-line application Not applicable

Notes

  1. Options include IIS Express for ASP.NET or node.js (iisnode), PHP web server, Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ, and Azure Toolkit for Eclipse. App Service also supports remote debugging of deployed web app.

Scalability

Service Autoscaling Load balancer Scale limit3
Azure Virtual Machines Virtual machine scale sets Azure Load Balancer Platform image: 1,000 nodes per scale set, Custom image: 600 nodes per scale set
Azure App Service Built-in service Integrated 30 instances, 100 with App Service Environment
Azure Functions Built-in service Integrated 200 instances per function app
Azure Kubernetes Service Pod autoscaling1, cluster autoscaling2 Azure Load Balancer or Azure Application Gateway 5,000 nodes when using Uptime SLA
Azure Container Apps Scaling rules4 Integrated 5 environments per region, 20 container apps per environment, 30 replicas per container app
Azure Container Instances Not supported No built-in support 20 container groups per subscription (default limit)
Azure Red Hat OpenShift Pod autoscaling, cluster autoscaling Azure Load Balancer or Azure Application Gateway 60 nodes per cluster (default limit)
Azure Spring Apps Built-in service Integrated 500 app instances in Standard
Azure Service Fabric Virtual machine scale sets Azure Load Balancer 100 nodes per virtual machine scale set
Azure Batch Not applicable Azure Load Balancer 20 core limit (default limit)

Notes

  1. See Autoscale pods.
  2. See Automatically scale a cluster to meet application demands on Azure Kubernetes Service.
  3. See Azure subscription and service limits, quotas, and constraints.
  4. See Set scaling rules in Azure Container Apps.

Availability

Service SLA Multiregion failover
Azure Virtual Machines SLA for Virtual Machines Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Front Door, and cross-region Azure Load Balancer
Azure App Service SLA for App Service Azure Traffic Manager and Azure Front Door
Azure Functions SLA for Functions Azure Traffic Manager and Azure Front Door
Azure Kubernetes Service SLA for AKS Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Front Door, and Multiregion Cluster
Azure Container Apps SLA for Container Apps Azure Traffic Manager and Azure Front Door
Azure Container Instances SLA for Container Instances Azure Traffic Manager and Azure Front Door
Azure Red Hat OpenShift SLA for Azure Red Hat OpenShift Azure Traffic Manager and Azure Front Door
Azure Spring Apps SLA for Azure Spring Apps Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Front Door, and Multiregion Cluster
Azure Service Fabric SLA for Service Fabric Azure Traffic Manager, Azure Front Door, and cross-region Azure Load Balancer
Azure Batch SLA for Batch Not applicable

For guided learning on service guarantees, see Core Cloud Services - Azure architecture and service guarantees.

Security

Review and understand the available security controls and visibility for each service:

Other criteria

Service TLS Cost Suitable architecture styles
Azure Virtual Machines Configured in VM Windows, Linux N-tier, big compute (HPC)
Azure App Service Supported App Service pricing Web-queue-worker
Azure Functions Supported Functions pricing Microservices, event-driven architecture
Azure Kubernetes Service Ingress controller AKS pricing Microservices, event-driven architecture
Azure Container Apps Ingress controller Container Apps pricing Microservices, event-driven architecture
Azure Container Instances Use sidecar container Container Instances pricing Microservices, task automation, batch jobs
Azure Red Hat OpenShift Supported Azure Red Hat OpenShift pricing Microservices, event-driven architecture
Azure Spring Apps Supported Azure Spring Apps pricing Spring Boot, microservices
Azure Service Fabric Supported Service Fabric pricing Microservices, event-driven architecture
Azure Batch Supported Batch pricing Big compute (HPC)

Consider limits and cost

Along with the previous comparison tables, do a more detailed evaluation of the following aspects of the candidate service:

Contributors

This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors:

To see nonpublic LinkedIn profiles, sign in to LinkedIn.

Next steps

Core Cloud Services - Azure compute options. This Learn module explores how compute services can solve common business needs.