How do Container Instances differ from OKE?

Container Instances are a serverless option for running individual containers or small groups of containers without Kubernetes overhead. They are ideal for simple workloads, batch jobs, and CI/CD tasks. OKE is a full Kubernetes platform for orchestrating many containers with service discovery, rolling updates, auto-scaling, and persistent storage. Choose Container Instances when you need to run a few containers quickly; choose OKE when you need container orchestration at scale.

Can I run multiple containers in a single Container Instance?

Yes, a Container Instance can run up to 60 containers that share the same network namespace and can communicate via localhost. This is similar to a Kubernetes pod. You allocate OCPU and memory at the instance level, and individual containers can have resource limits within that allocation. Multi-container instances are useful for sidecar patterns like log forwarding, metrics collection, or TLS proxying.

OCI Container Instance Builder

ComputeOCI

Build OCI Container Instance configurations with multi-container and health checks.

OCI Container Instances Configuration

Build OCI Container Instance configurations with multi-container support, health checks, and networking.

Required Fields

compartmentIddisplayNameshapeshapeConfigcontainers

{
  "compartmentId": "ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaexample",
  "displayName": "api-worker-container",
  "availabilityDomain": "Uocm:US-ASHBURN-AD-1",
  "shape": "CI.Standard.E4.Flex",
  "shapeConfig": {
    "ocpus": 2,
    "memoryInGBs": 8
  },
  "vnics": [
    {
      "subnetId": "ocid1.subnet.oc1.iad.aaaaaaaexample",
      "isPublicIpAssigned": false,
      "nsgIds": ["ocid1.networksecuritygroup.oc1.iad.aaaaaaaexample"]
    }
  ],
  "containers": [
    {
      "displayName": "api-server",
      "imageUrl": "iad.ocir.io/my-namespace/api-server:v1.2.0",
      "command": ["/app/server"],
      "arguments": ["--port", "8080"],
      "environmentVariables": {
        "NODE_ENV": "production",
        "DB_HOST": "10.0.20.5",
        "LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      },
      "resourceConfig": {
        "vcpusLimit": 1.5,
        "memoryLimitInGBs": 6
      },
      "healthChecks": [
        {
          "name": "http-health",
          "healthCheckType": "HTTP",
          "port": 8080,
          "path": "/healthz",
          "initialDelayInSeconds": 10,
          "intervalInSeconds": 30,
          "timeoutInSeconds": 5,
          "successThreshold": 1,
          "failureThreshold": 3
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "displayName": "log-sidecar",
      "imageUrl": "iad.ocir.io/my-namespace/fluentd:latest",
      "resourceConfig": {
        "vcpusLimit": 0.5,
        "memoryLimitInGBs": 2
      }
    }
  ],
  "gracefulShutdownTimeoutInSeconds": 30,
  "imagePullSecrets": [
    {
      "secretType": "VAULT",
      "secretId": "ocid1.vaultsecret.oc1.iad.aaaaaaaexample"
    }
  ],
  "freeformTags": {
    "app": "api-worker",
    "environment": "production"
  }
}

Generated Output

Output will appear here...

About This Tool

OCI Container Instances provide a serverless container runtime for running containers without managing servers or Kubernetes clusters. You define one or more containers per instance, specify shape and resource allocations, configure networking and storage, and OCI handles the underlying infrastructure. This builder helps you assemble container instance configurations including image sources, environment variables, resource limits, volume mounts, and VCN subnet placement. It generates configurations compatible with the OCI CLI, Terraform, and the OCI SDK.

When to Use This Tool

•Building container instance definitions for batch processing jobs that run on a schedule and terminate after completion
•Configuring multi-container instances with a main application container and a sidecar logging or monitoring container
•Creating container instances with VCN subnet placement for private network access to databases and internal services
•Generating Terraform configurations for container instances that pull images from OCI Container Registry with proper authentication

Frequently Asked Questions

How do Container Instances differ from OKE?: Container Instances are a serverless option for running individual containers or small groups of containers without Kubernetes overhead. They are ideal for simple workloads, batch jobs, and CI/CD tasks. OKE is a full Kubernetes platform for orchestrating many containers with service discovery, rolling updates, auto-scaling, and persistent storage. Choose Container Instances when you need to run a few containers quickly; choose OKE when you need container orchestration at scale.
Can I run multiple containers in a single Container Instance?: Yes, a Container Instance can run up to 60 containers that share the same network namespace and can communicate via localhost. This is similar to a Kubernetes pod. You allocate OCPU and memory at the instance level, and individual containers can have resource limits within that allocation. Multi-container instances are useful for sidecar patterns like log forwarding, metrics collection, or TLS proxying.

Related Learning Guides

OKE: Kubernetes on Oracle Cloud22 min read

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