Questions about Azure App Service with Web and Desktop GUI Applications

Question

I have the following questions:

1. I was unable to create App Service with Java 17, Apache Tomcat 8.5 Web Server Container. I had to select Java 17 with Java SE container or Tomcat 9+. Can you explain this? Please provide reference if possible to clarify the different options.
2. Can you create a container to deploy Java GUI/Desktop Application on Azure Cloud? Can you please point me to a tutorial? In my case, I was able to deploy a web app to Azure App Service. I am looking to deploy a desktop/GUI application to Azure Platform. Please provide you feedback on this. I have seen tutorials about creating Docker Container for Windows Desktop Apps and wanted to know if I can deploy such apps on Azure. See this for example: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SZvwDqSPuTU&feature=shares

Use Case: There is a Java Windows Desktop Application that can be converted (maybe) to work without any GUI as it acts as a service since it writes all actions and errors to log files. Can we deploy such an application to Azure? What if is has a very simple UI, can we leverage Azure platform to deploy such an application? Can you point me to articles about such a topic? Why we can or cannot or should or should not do or do not do such a deployment?

Regards,
Tarek

Answer 1

1. Azure aligns closely with the supported versions from the vendors. As Tomcat 8.5 almost reaches its end-of-life, https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-85-eol.html it makes sense to stop showing such an ancient version in user interface. If you really has a need for 8.5, you can build a Docker image and then deploy the container to Azure App Service. That's usually how legacy technologies are deployed (people still use things like PHP 5.x/7.x in the same way).
2. About packing GUI apps as containers, what's the user experience you want to achieve? End users connect to containers via remote desktop? You didn't find anything because people don't see any value from that approach.