A team runs nine small services, each with its own conflicting library versions. They want each one packaged with its dependencies, starting in seconds, several to a host, without a separate operating system per service. Which compute type are they describing?
Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900), objective architecture-and-services. Azure architecture and services easy
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The options
Correct Containers
Correct. A container image carries the application and its dependencies, and containers on a host share that host's operating system kernel, which is what makes them start in seconds and pack densely.
Not correct One virtual machine per service
Wrong. That is nine operating systems to patch, licence and boot, each reserving memory for a kernel it could have shared. Removing exactly that overhead is why containers exist.
Not correct Azure Functions
Wrong for this description. Functions suits short event-driven code, not nine long-running services that each bring their own dependency stack and expect to keep running.
Not correct An availability set
Wrong — an availability set is not a compute type at all. It is a placement construct that spreads virtual machines across fault and update domains.
Why
Virtual machines virtualise the hardware, so each one boots its own operating system; containers virtualise the operating system, so many share one kernel and carry only what sits above it. That is the whole reason for the difference in start-up time, image size and density — and also the limit: anything a workload needs from the kernel itself cannot be containerised away.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Microsoft AZ-900 study guide skill area architecture-and-services.compute-and-networking
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