AWS Karpenter now supports Windows containers

Windows containers: The forgotten stepchild

The Virtual Conference for The Plumbing That Makes The Cloud Work

Breaking Docker Named Pipes SYSTEMatically: Docker Desktop Privilege Escalation – Part 1

Everything started when I was researching Windows containers. It required installing Docker Desktop for Windows, and I couldn’t help but notice that there were many Docker processes. Since some of...

Scanning Windows container images is (surprisingly) easy!

When it comes to Linux containers, there are plenty of tools out there that can scan container images, generate Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), or list vulnerabilities. However, Windows container images are more like the forgotten stepchild in the container ecosystem. And that means we’re forgetting the countless developers using Windows containers, too. I wanted to see what I’d need to make scanning tools for Windows container images. Turns out it’s pretty easy.

Modernizing Microsoft 365 with a move to Windows containers on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Technical StoryThe COVID-19 pandemic turned online communication and collaboration tools into essential services overnight. For Microsoft 365—the worldwide productivity cloud used by 200 million monthly home, business, and enterprise users—the difficult times accelerated a push to modernize application hosting infrastructure and to streamline release management processes.

A move to Windows containers helps Relativity boost reliability and security while lowering costs

Technical StoryRelativity, a global market leader in legal e-discovery and compliance software, helps organizations find the truth buried in today’s ever-growing data sources. Its flagship product, RelativityOne, provides expert software as a service (SaaS) capable of sifting through torrents of data. With multiple awards for technological innovation and cybersecurity excellence, RelativityOne is backed by the security, reliability, and global reach of Azure. Yet, as cloud practices evolved, the company knew it could do more to modernize its highly complex Windows code base, streamline development, and improve scalability.

Forza Horizon 5 crosses the finish line fueled by Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Technical StoryWhen it launched, Forza Horizon 5 saw more than 10 million concurrent players—the biggest first week in Xbox Game Studios history—drive across vibrant, virtual landscapes and face off in thrilling tournaments and challenges. Forza Horizon 5 is also a stunning win behind the scenes, where Azure platform as a service (PaaS) provides a virtual crew, and a Windows-based container architecture adapts to changing demand at warp speed. The game developers rely on autoscaling Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters to meet the most challenging performance demands, while fully managed Azure services free the team from time-consuming infrastructure management tasks.What the game developers learned about AKS applies to retail, financial services, streaming, and other workloads that need Grand Prix performance to manage concurrency with low latency and big spikes in demand.