Azure Service Fabric Mesh now in Public Preview!

Azure Service Fabric is a platform created to build and manage microservices and container-based applications for Windows and Linux. Service Fabric is a technology powering Azure’s core infrastructure, including other Microsoft could services such as Skype for business, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365 and more.

At the Microsoft Build event the Service Fabric roadmap was shared along with demonstrations on this, which show a fully managed service that allows developers to deploy and operate containerised applications without having to manage the VMs as well. Service Mesh Fabric supports Windows and Linux platforms therefore it allows users to develop in a programming language/framework of their choice.

FAQ

How is Service Fabric Mesh deployed?

To get started using this the easiest way is to use the Visual Studio Tools for Service Fabric Mesh, alternatively users can also ‘lift and shift’ applications straight into the cloud. Once an application is running inside a container it can be deployed using the Azure CLI with an application manifest to the Service Fabric Mesh service. The manifest will then specify the set of services comprising the application along with any network requirements.

Service Fabric Mesh will then do the rest itself including maintaining availability of the applications during errors related to hardware or software, service delivery, scaling and more.

Which container images are supported?

  • Windows Server Core and nanoserver
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 1709
  • Linux

What are the costs if any?

At this moment in time it is free of charge however in the next few months the charge will be based on the resources deployed at 50% of the cost.

Are there limitations for the preview?

Yes, users are restricted to a quota each month currently. the quota for each subscription is:

  • Number of applications – 5
  • Number of cores per application – 12
  • Total RAM per application – 48GB
  • Number of network and ingress end points – 5
  • Number of Azure volumes that can be attached – 10
  • Number of service replicas – 3

The largest container is limited to 4 cores with 16GB of RAM.

Can the applications be left running overnight?

Yes however Microsoft recommend against this unless it is being actively tested.

Can the Service Fabric Mesh public preview service be used for deploying production workloads?

The service is in preview therefore has no SLA, Microsoft discourage deploying production workloads at this time.

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