Azure Resource Manager vs Kubernetes

Overview

Kubernetes

Stacks61.2K

Followers52.8K

Votes685

Azure Resource Manager

Stacks40

Followers93

Votes11

GitHub Stars64

Forks47

Azure Resource Manager vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Azure Resource Manager and Kubernetes

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) and Kubernetes are both widely used in cloud computing, but they have distinct functionalities and purposes. Here are the key differences between the two:

Scope and Focus: Azure Resource Manager is a cloud management service provided by Microsoft Azure, while Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform. ARM primarily focuses on managing resources and services in the Azure environment, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, and networking components. On the other hand, Kubernetes focuses on automated deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications across clusters of hosts.
Abstraction Level: ARM provides a higher-level abstraction for managing Azure resources, allowing users to define and deploy resources together as a group. It simplifies the management and provisioning of resources by providing declarative templates and resource providers. Conversely, Kubernetes operates at a lower-level abstraction, focusing on containers and their lifecycle management, providing features like auto-scaling, load balancing, and service discovery.
Workload Type: Azure Resource Manager is designed to handle diverse workloads and services within Azure, supporting both platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings. It provides capabilities for managing virtual machines, databases, web apps, and more. Kubernetes, on the other hand, is specifically designed for containerized workloads, making it well-suited for modern application development and microservices architecture.
Cluster Management: ARM provides centralized management for Azure resources, allowing users to deploy and manage resources consistently across multiple Azure regions and subscriptions. It provides fine-grained access control and role-based authorization for resources. Meanwhile, Kubernetes focuses on managing container clusters, orchestrating containerized applications across multiple hosts, and providing self-healing capabilities.
Community and Ecosystem: Kubernetes has a large and active community, with contributions from various organizations and cloud providers. It has a vast ecosystem of tools, frameworks, and integrations, making it highly extensible and adaptable. Azure Resource Manager, being a component of Azure, benefits from the broader Azure ecosystem, offering integration with various Azure services and robust documentation and support.
Vendor Neutrality: Kubernetes is an open-source project managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which means it can be used across different cloud providers and on-premises environments with portability. Azure Resource Manager, on the other hand, is a proprietary service provided by Microsoft Azure, specifically designed for managing Azure resources, limiting its portability outside of the Azure ecosystem.

In summary, Azure Resource Manager is a cloud management service provided by Azure, focusing on managing Azure resources, while Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform designed for managing containerized applications across clusters, with a broader community and ecosystem.

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Advice on Kubernetes, Azure Resource Manager

Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

Decidedon

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Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:

@{GitHub}|tool:27| (incl. @{GitHub Pages}|tool:683|/@{Markdown}|tool:1147| for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
Respectively @{Git}|tool:1046| as revision control system
@{SourceTree}|tool:1599| as @{Git}|tool:1046| GUI
@{Visual Studio Code}|tool:4202| as IDE
@{CircleCI}|tool:190| for continuous integration (automatize development process)
@{Prettier}|tool:7035| / @{TSLint}|tool:5561| / @{ESLint}|tool:3337| as code linter
@{SonarQube}|tool:2638| as quality gate
@{Docker}|tool:586| as container management (incl. @{Docker Compose}|tool:3136| for multi-container application management)
@{VirtualBox}|tool:774| for operating system simulation tests
@{Kubernetes}|tool:1885| as cluster management for docker containers
@{Heroku}|tool:133| for deploying in test environments
@{nginx}|tool:1052| as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
@{SSLMate}|tool:2752| (using @{OpenSSL}|tool:3091|) for certificate management
@{Amazon EC2}|tool:18| (incl. @{Amazon S3}|tool:25|) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
@{PostgreSQL}|tool:1028| as preferred database system
@{Redis}|tool:1031| as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)

The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:

Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.

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Detailed Comparison

Kubernetes	Azure Resource Manager
Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.	It is the deployment and management service for Azure. It provides a management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure subscription. You use management features, like access control, locks, and tags, to secure and organize your resources after deployment.
Lightweight, simple and accessible;Built for a multi-cloud world, public, private or hybrid;Highly modular, designed so that all of its components are easily swappable	Deploy app resources; Organize resources; Control access to resources
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 64
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 47
Stacks 61.2K	Stacks 40
Followers 52.8K	Followers 93
Votes 685	Votes 11
Pros & Cons
Pros 166 Leading docker container management solution 130 Simple and powerful 108 Open source 76 Backed by google 58 The right abstractions Cons 16 Steep learning curve 15 Poor workflow for development 8 Orchestrates only infrastructure 4 High resource requirements for on-prem clusters 2 Too heavy for simple systems	Pros 4 Bicep - Simple Declarative Language 2 RBAC and Policies in templates 1 Day 1 resource support 1 Infrastructure-as-Code 1 Versioned deployment via Blueprints
Integrations
Vagrant Docker Rackspace Cloud Servers Microsoft Azure Google Compute Engine Ansible Google Kubernetes Engine	Docker Ruby Terraform rkt

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, Azure Resource Manager?

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

AWS CloudFormation

You can use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create your own templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run your application. You don’t need to figure out the order in which AWS services need to be provisioned or the subtleties of how to make those dependencies work.

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

Packer

Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image. It embraces modern configuration management by encouraging you to use automated scripts to install and configure the software within your Packer-made images.

Scalr

Scalr is a remote state & operations backend for Terraform with access controls, policy as code, and many quality of life features.

Pulumi

Pulumi is a cloud development platform that makes creating cloud programs easy and productive. Skip the YAML and just write code. Pulumi is multi-language, multi-cloud and fully extensible in both its engine and ecosystem of packages.

Related Comparisons

Azure Resource Manager vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Azure Resource Manager and Kubernetes

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) and Kubernetes are both widely used in cloud computing, but they have distinct functionalities and purposes. Here are the key differences between the two:

Scope and Focus: Azure Resource Manager is a cloud management service provided by Microsoft Azure, while Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration platform. ARM primarily focuses on managing resources and services in the Azure environment, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, and networking components. On the other hand, Kubernetes focuses on automated deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications across clusters of hosts.
Abstraction Level: ARM provides a higher-level abstraction for managing Azure resources, allowing users to define and deploy resources together as a group. It simplifies the management and provisioning of resources by providing declarative templates and resource providers. Conversely, Kubernetes operates at a lower-level abstraction, focusing on containers and their lifecycle management, providing features like auto-scaling, load balancing, and service discovery.
Workload Type: Azure Resource Manager is designed to handle diverse workloads and services within Azure, supporting both platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings. It provides capabilities for managing virtual machines, databases, web apps, and more. Kubernetes, on the other hand, is specifically designed for containerized workloads, making it well-suited for modern application development and microservices architecture.
Cluster Management: ARM provides centralized management for Azure resources, allowing users to deploy and manage resources consistently across multiple Azure regions and subscriptions. It provides fine-grained access control and role-based authorization for resources. Meanwhile, Kubernetes focuses on managing container clusters, orchestrating containerized applications across multiple hosts, and providing self-healing capabilities.
Community and Ecosystem: Kubernetes has a large and active community, with contributions from various organizations and cloud providers. It has a vast ecosystem of tools, frameworks, and integrations, making it highly extensible and adaptable. Azure Resource Manager, being a component of Azure, benefits from the broader Azure ecosystem, offering integration with various Azure services and robust documentation and support.
Vendor Neutrality: Kubernetes is an open-source project managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which means it can be used across different cloud providers and on-premises environments with portability. Azure Resource Manager, on the other hand, is a proprietary service provided by Microsoft Azure, specifically designed for managing Azure resources, limiting its portability outside of the Azure ecosystem.

Azure Resource Manager vs Kubernetes

Overview

Azure Resource Manager vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?