Tutorial: Deploy a multi-container group using Docker Compose

In this tutorial, you use Docker Compose to define and run a multi-container application locally and then deploy it as a container group in Azure Container Instances.

Run containers in Azure Container Instances on-demand when you develop cloud-native apps with Docker and you want to switch seamlessly from local development to cloud deployment. This capability is enabled by integration between Docker and Azure. You can use native Docker commands to run either a single container instance or multi-container group in Azure.

In this article, you:

Prerequisites

• Azure CLI - You must have the Azure CLI installed on your local computer. Version 2.10.1 or later is recommended. Run az --version to find the version. If you need to install or upgrade, see Install the Azure CLI.

• Docker Desktop - You must use Docker Desktop version 2.3.0.5 or later, available for Windows or macOS. Or install the Docker ACI Integration CLI for Linux.

Create Azure container registry

Before you create your container registry, you need a resource group to deploy it to. A resource group is a logical collection into which all Azure resources are deployed and managed.

Create a resource group with the az group create command. In the following example, a resource group named myResourceGroup is created in the chinaeast2 region:

az group create --name myResourceGroup --location chinaeast2

Once you've created the resource group, create an Azure container registry with the az acr create command. The container registry name must be unique within Azure, and contain 5-50 alphanumeric characters. Replace <acrName> with a unique name for your registry:

az acr create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name <acrName> --sku Basic

Here's partial output for a new Azure container registry named mycontainerregistry082:

{
  "creationDate": "2020-07-16T21:54:47.297875+00:00",
  "id": "/subscriptions/<Subscription ID>/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries/mycontainerregistry082",
  "location": "chinaeast2",
  "loginServer": "mycontainerregistry082.azurecr.cn",
  "name": "mycontainerregistry082",
  "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
  "resourceGroup": "myResourceGroup",
  "sku": {
    "name": "Basic",
    "tier": "Basic"
  },
  "status": null,
  "storageAccount": null,
  "tags": {},
  "type": "Microsoft.ContainerRegistry/registries"
}

The rest of the tutorial refers to <acrName> as a placeholder for the container registry name that you chose in this step.

Log in to container registry

You must log in to your Azure Container Registry instance before pushing images to it. Use the az acr login command to complete the operation. You must provide the unique name you chose for the container registry when you created it.

az acr login --name <acrName>

For example:

az acr login --name mycontainerregistry082

The command returns Login Succeeded once completed:

Login Succeeded

Get application code

The sample application used in this tutorial is a basic voting app. The application consists of a front-end web component and a back-end Redis instance. The web component is packaged into a custom container image. The Redis instance uses an unmodified image from Docker Hub.

Use git to clone the sample application to your development environment:

git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/azure-voting-app-redis.git

Change into the cloned directory.

cd azure-voting-app-redis

Inside the directory is the application source code and a pre-created Docker compose file, docker-compose.yaml.

Modify Docker compose file

Open docker-compose.yaml in a text editor. The file configures the azure-vote-back and azure-vote-front services.

version: '3'
services:
  azure-vote-back:
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8
    container_name: azure-vote-back
    environment:
      ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: "yes"
    ports:
        - "6379:6379"

  azure-vote-front:
    build: ./azure-vote
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/azure-vote-front:v1
    container_name: azure-vote-front
    environment:
      REDIS: azure-vote-back
    ports:
        - "8080:80"

In the azure-vote-front configuration, make the following two changes:

1. Update the image property in the azure-vote-front service. Prefix the image name with the login server name of your Azure container registry, <acrName>.azurecr.cn. For example, if your registry is named myregistry, the login server name is myregistry.azurecr.cn (all lowercase), and the image property is then myregistry.azurecr.cn/azure-vote-front.
2. Change the ports mapping to 80:80. Save the file.

The updated file should look similar to the following:

version: '3'
services:
  azure-vote-back:
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8
    container_name: azure-vote-back
    environment:
      ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: "yes"
    ports:
        - "6379:6379"

  azure-vote-front:
    build: ./azure-vote
    image: myregistry.azurecr.cn/azure-vote-front
    container_name: azure-vote-front
    environment:
      REDIS: azure-vote-back
    ports:
        - "80:80"

By making these substitutions, the azure-vote-front image you build in the next step is tagged for your Azure container registry, and the image can be pulled to run in Azure Container Instances.

Run multi-container application locally

Run docker-compose up, which uses the sample docker-compose.yaml file to build the container image, download the Redis image, and start the application:

docker-compose up --build -d

When completed, use the docker images command to see the created images. Three images have been downloaded or created. The azure-vote-front image contains the front-end application, which uses the uwsgi-nginx-flask image as a base. The redis image is used to start a Redis instance.

$ docker images

REPOSITORY                                TAG        IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
myregistry.azurecr.cn/azure-vote-front    latest     9cc914e25834        40 seconds ago      944MB
mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis       6.0.8      3a54a920bb6c        4 weeks ago          103MB
tiangolo/uwsgi-nginx-flask                python3.6  788ca94b2313        9 months ago        9444MB

Run the docker ps command to see the running containers:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                                      COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                           NAMES
82411933e8f9        myregistry.azurecr.cn/azure-vote-front     "/entrypoint.sh /sta…"   57 seconds ago      Up 30 seconds       443/tcp, 0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp   azure-vote-front
b62b47a7d313        mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8  "/opt/bitnami/script…"   57 seconds ago      Up 30 seconds       0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp          azure-vote-back

To see the running application, enter http://localhost:80 in a local web browser. The sample application loads, as shown in the following example:

After trying the local application, run docker-compose down to stop the application and remove the containers.

docker-compose down

Push image to container registry

To deploy the application to Azure Container Instances, you need to push the azure-vote-front image to your container registry. Run docker-compose push to push the image:

docker-compose push

It can take a few minutes to push to the registry.

To verify the image is stored in your registry, run the az acr repository show command:

az acr repository show --name <acrName> --repository azuredocs/azure-vote-front

Create Azure context

To use Docker commands to run containers in Azure Container Instances, first log into Azure:

docker login azure --cloud-name AzureChinaCloud

When prompted, enter or select your Azure credentials.

Create an ACI context by running docker context create aci. This context associates Docker with an Azure subscription and resource group so you can create and manage container instances. For example, to create a context called myacicontext:

docker context create aci myacicontext --resource-group <ACI_Deployment_Resource_Group> --location <ACI_Deployment_Region>

When prompted, select your Azure subscription ID, then select an existing resource group or create a new resource group. If you choose a new resource group, it's created with a system-generated name. Azure container instances, like all Azure resources, must be deployed into a resource group. Resource groups allow you to organize and manage related Azure resources.

Run docker context ls to confirm that you added the ACI context to your Docker contexts:

docker context ls

Deploy application to Azure Container Instances

Next, change to the ACI context. Subsequent Docker commands run in this context.

docker context use myacicontext

Run docker compose up to start the application in Azure Container Instances. The azure-vote-front image is pulled from your container registry and the container group is created in Azure Container Instances.

docker compose up

In a short time, the container group is deployed. Sample output:

[+] Running 3/3
 ⠿ Group azurevotingappredis  Created                          3.6s
 ⠿ azure-vote-back            Done                             10.6s
 ⠿ azure-vote-front           Done                             10.6s

Run docker ps to see the running containers and the IP address assigned to the container group.

docker ps

Sample output:

CONTAINER ID                           IMAGE                                         COMMAND             STATUS              PORTS
azurevotingappredis_azure-vote-back    mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8                         Running             52.179.23.131:6379->6379/tcp
azurevotingappredis_azure-vote-front   myregistry.azurecr.cn/azure-vote-front                            Running             52.179.23.131:80->80/tcp

To see the running application in the cloud, enter the displayed IP address in a local web browser. In this example, enter 52.179.23.131. The sample application loads, as shown in the following example:

To see the logs of the front-end container, run the docker logs command. For example:

docker logs azurevotingappredis_azure-vote-front

You can also use the Azure portal or other Azure tools to see the properties and status of the container group you deployed.

When you finish trying the application, stop the application and containers with docker compose down:

docker compose down

This command deletes the container group in Azure Container Instances.

Next steps

In this tutorial, you used Docker Compose to switch from running a multi-container application locally to running in Azure Container Instances. You learned how to:

You can also use the Docker extension for Visual Studio Code for an integrated experience to develop, run, and manage containers, images, and contexts.

If you want to take advantage of more features in Azure Container Instances, use Azure tools to specify a multi-container group. For example, see the tutorials to deploy a container group using the Azure CLI with a YAML file, or deploy using an Azure Resource Manager template.