A developer needs to deploy a Python-based web API to Azure. The API is stateless and receives frequent HTTP requests. The company prefers a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering that minimizes operational overhead for server management and patching, while providing built-in scaling and integration with other Azure services. Which Azure compute solution is MOST appropriate?

Why the other options are wrong

• A. Azure Container Instances (ACI) are suitable for single container deployments but lack the comprehensive PaaS features like integrated scaling, deployment slots, and direct API management that App Service provides for web APIs.
• B. Azure Functions with an HTTP trigger is a serverless option, typically for event-driven, short-lived code snippets. While it minimizes overhead, for a full 'web API' with frequent requests that might not be purely event-driven and could have longer execution times, App Service is generally more robust and feature-rich as a dedicated API hosting platform.
• D. Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) are IaaS, requiring significant operational overhead for OS management, patching, and scaling, which contradicts the 'minimize operational overhead' requirement.