Traditional infrastructure concerns once forced enterprise software development teams to focus part of their efforts on handling resource scaling, ensuring runtime availability, patching systems, and maintaining data security for their Application Program Interfaces (APIs). Thanks to the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) infrastructure options available today, development teams can handle API deployments much more efficiently.

PaaS makes it possible to expose API functionality to clients without spending any time worrying about the time and manpower cost of deploying and maintaining infrastructure. It also creates the option to containerize APIs within PaaS infrastructure and deploy them the same way they would any other web application.

In this article, we’ll shine a spotlight on the managed API deployment model brought about by PaaS offerings. We’ll explain how containers fit into that equation, and we’ll highlight why this model is a smart strategy for enterprise API deployments.

What is a container – and why does it matter for API deployments?

Containers are isolated deployment environments designed to package applications with everything they need (dependencies, config files, etc.) to run consistently across multiple platforms. Containerized API deployments help ensure the underlying service functions more predictably for the environment it’s serving. In theory, the performance of a containerized API will be identical on a developer’s laptop to its performance in any other staging environment (or to its performance on a production server).

In practice, of course, actual performance metrics will still vary somewhat based on a few different conditions. After all, containers don’t forge a magic path around network latency or the inherent limitations of hardware. The point is, rather, that the container environment remains consistent enough to make performance discrepancies attributable to factors beyond the scope of the APIs packaging or dependencies.

That’s a marked improvement over the days when environment-specific bugs or large, head-scratching performance disparities could make API performance troubleshooting a much more challenging task.

Compared to traditional Virtual Machines (VMs), containers are well-suited for hosting microservices and stateless APIs. Both benefit from fast startup times and predictable runtime behavior.

How does publishing an API on a container work?

Publishing APIs on containers works just the same as any other web application. APIs are typically wrapped inside a Docker image and pushed to a container registry (like Azure Container Registry or Docker Hub).

Once that’s done, the container registry can pull the Docker image and deploy it as a running web application. The API then becomes accessible through a public endpoint, and the platform hosting the application service handles the rest (everything from scaling to traffic management).

This model completely circumvents the traditional need for API deployment teams to provision or maintain the VMs they’re using.

PaaS via Azure App Service deployment

Azure App Service is one of the dominant PaaS offerings in today’s market, and it supports container-based deployment out of the box. This makes it well-suited for hosting API workloads.

APIs can be deployed on Linux or Windows containers, and they can be integrated with CI/CD pipelines. Deployment slots can be easily managed, and the API can be horizontally scaled as needed with zero downtime. It doesn’t matter where the image lives; if it’s in a private registry or a Docker Hub, App Service can access it and run it within a managed environment using built-in load balancing. All these benefits (plus built-in features like staging environments diagnostic logging, secure networking, etc.) make App Service an extremely friendly solution for enterprise deployments.

Deploying Cloudmersive Private Cloud on Azure App Service with Containers

Cloudmersive’s Private Cloud offering can be containerized and deployed on Azure App Service as a web application. This means automated scaling, high availability, security, and maintenance for Cloudmersive Private Cloud customers without compromising control over the private deployment environment.

For more information about deploying Cloudmersive Private Cloud on Azure App Service with containers, please feel free to contact a member of our team.