You must deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster that uses Linux nodes. The solution must minimize the time required to provision compute resources during scale‑out operations, support autoscaling of Linux containers, and minimize administrative effort. Which scaling option should you recommend?

Virtual nodes, powered by Azure Container Instances (ACI) and Virtual Kubelet, allow AKS to provision pods in ACI in seconds, significantly minimizing compute resource provisioning time during scale-out operations. This approach eliminates the need to manage underlying virtual machines for those pods, reducing administrative effort. It also supports the autoscaling of Linux containers by dynamically creating ACI instances as needed. Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) scales the number of pods within an existing node pool but doesn't provision new compute resources (nodes). Cluster autoscaler adds or removes nodes from the cluster based on resource demand, but provisioning new VMs still takes longer than ACI. Virtual Kubelet is the open-source technology that enables virtual nodes but is not the scaling option itself.