Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Overview

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) simplifies deploying, managing, and automating scalable containerized applications. AKS orchestrates your Kubernetes clusters, enabling you to focus on your application logic rather than infrastructure management.

What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes runs on a cluster of machines and orchestrates the containers across those machines.

Why use AKS?

AKS provides the following benefits:

Simplified Deployment: Easily deploy your containerized applications with minimal configuration.
Managed Control Plane: Azure manages the Kubernetes control plane (API server, etcd, scheduler, etc.), reducing operational overhead.
Scalability: Scale your applications up or down automatically based on demand.
Integration: Seamless integration with other Azure services like Azure Monitor, Azure Policy, and Azure DevOps.
Security: Built-in security features and adherence to Azure's robust security posture.
Cost-Effective: Pay only for the worker nodes you use. The Kubernetes control plane is free.

Key Concepts in AKS

Understanding these core Kubernetes concepts is essential for working with AKS:

Cluster: A set of worker machines, called nodes, that run your containerized applications.
Node: A virtual machine that runs your containerized applications.
Pod: The smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes. A Pod represents a single instance of a running process in your cluster and can contain one or more containers.
Deployment: A Kubernetes object that manages a set of identical Pods. Deployments provide declarative updates for Pods and ReplicaSets.
Service: An abstraction that defines a logical set of Pods and a policy by which to access them.
Ingress: Manages external access to the services in a cluster, typically HTTP.

Common Use Cases

AKS is ideal for a wide range of scenarios, including:

Microservices architectures
Web applications
Batch processing
Machine learning workloads
IoT applications

Getting Started with AKS

To get started with AKS, you'll typically need:

An Azure subscription.
The Azure CLI installed.
The kubectl command-line tool configured to connect to your cluster.

You can create an AKS cluster using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell. A basic cluster creation command using Azure CLI looks like this:

az group create --name myResourceGroup --location eastus
az aks create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster --node-count 1 --enable-addons monitoring --generate-ssh-keys

Core Features

AKS offers a rich set of features to enhance your container orchestration experience:

Automated Upgrades & Patching

Keep your Kubernetes versions up-to-date with minimal downtime.

Auto-Scaling

Automatically adjust the number of nodes and pods based on resource utilization.

Azure Policy for Kubernetes

Enforce organizational standards and assess compliance across your clusters.

Integrated Monitoring

Leverage Azure Monitor for comprehensive visibility into your cluster and application performance.

Identity and Access Management

Integrate with Azure Active Directory for secure authentication and authorization.

Networking Options

Support for various networking models, including Azure CNI and Kubenet.

MSDN Documentation