Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) makes it simple to deploy a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure. AKS reduces the complexity and operational overhead of managing Kubernetes by offloading much of that responsibility to Azure. As a hosted Kubernetes service, Azure handles critical tasks like health monitoring and maintenance for you. The Kubernetes masters are managed by Azure. You only manage and maintain the agent nodes.
Azure AKS Kubernetes Services in Resource Group.
When you go to settings of your Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster and then to Upgrade, there you can see your version of Kubernetes and the New versions of Azure AKS Services. Before you upgrade :
Important : Never skip an Upgrade version of Azure AKS Kubernetes.
You can Upgrade from here by clicking on version 1.15.5 and click on Save at the top.
Azure Activity log.
When the first upgrade is succeeded you can do the next version upgrade.
With Azure Monitoring Insights you can view the live data and see what’s going on.
Azure Monitoring Container Insights.
When the upgrade is completed, you want to see if your new Azure AKS Cluster Services is Healthy.
This Health (Preview) feature is handy to see if all Services are running good.
Azure Monitoring Insights Health of the AKS Kubernetes Services.
The Upgrades are of course also possible via Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell with Azure CLI
As a DevOps person you like to work with Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Deploying and managing your Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster services from there with the right extensions.
Here you see also that the KubeProxyVersion is v1.15.7
The extension for developers building applications to run in Kubernetes clusters and for DevOps staff troubleshooting Kubernetes applications.
Features include:
View your clusters in an explorer tree view, and drill into workloads, services, pods and nodes.
Browse Helm repos and install charts into your Kubernetes cluster.
Intellisense for Kubernetes resources and Helm charts and templates.
Edit Kubernetes resource manifests and apply them to your cluster.
Build and run containers in your cluster from Dockerfiles in your project.
View diffs of a resource’s current state against the resource manifest in your Git repo
Easily check out the Git commit corresponding to a deployed application.
Run commands or start a shell within your application’s pods.
Get or follow logs and events from your clusters.
Forward local ports to your application’s pods.
Create Helm charts using scaffolding and snippets.
Bootstrap applications using Draft, and rapidly deploy and debug them to speed up the development loop.
Upgrade Azure AKS Kubernetes Services is Done 😉
When you manage and monitor your Azure AKS Kubernetes Cluster Services, have also a look at Microsoft Azure Advisor for new features and security issues :
Azure Advisor recommendations for Kubernetes services.
The cool thing is that Microsoft also give you the solution to solve a high risk :
Remediation steps.
Conclusion :
Microsoft Azure AKS Kubernetes is a managed services and made upgrading for customers really easy to do. You can monitor the upgrades and see the Health status of the Azure AKS Kubernetes services. You get free advise to improve the Services and this all keeps you in control and your business running.
Start Creating Azure Kubernetes Cluster for your Containers.
Managed Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) makes deploying and managing containerized applications easy. It offers serverless Kubernetes, an integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) experience, and enterprise-grade security and governance. As a hosted Kubernetes service, Azure handles critical tasks like health monitoring and maintenance for you. The Kubernetes masters are managed by Azure. You only manage and maintain the agent nodes. As a managed Kubernetes service, AKS is free – you only pay for the agent nodes within your clusters, not for the masters. In the following steps you can see the different ways for creating Azure Kubernetes Cluster via the Azure Portal, or via Azure Cloud Shell, or via Azure Resource Template. When the Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Cluster is running, then I will explain the different ways for deploying container workloads on AKS. When your workload is running on Azure Kubernetes Services, you also have to monitor your Container workloads with Azure Monitor Container Insights to keep in Controle. Let’s start with installing Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)
Installing Azure Kubernetes Cluster via the Portal.
To begin you need of course a Microsoft Azure Subscription and you can start for free here
Basics information of the Azure Kubernetes Cluster
To Create the Azure Kubernetes Cluster, you have to follow these steps and type the right information in the Portal:
Basics
Scale
Authentication
Networking
Monitoring
Tags
Review + Create
At the basics screen you select the right Azure Subscription and the Resource Group. You can create a New Resource Group or one you already made.
At Cluster details, you give your Cluster a name and select the Kubernetes version.
Here you select the Kubernetes Node size for your Container workload and the number of nodes.
You can start a Cluster already with One node, but choose to start with the right size for your workloads.
When you click on Change size, you can choose your nodes to do the job. 😉
Select the right Size node
Then we go to step 2 and that is Scale.
2. Scale options in Azure Kubernetes Cluster
Here you have two options :
Virtual Nodes
VM Scale sets (Preview)
To quickly deploy workloads in an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster, you can use virtual nodes. With virtual nodes, you have fast provisioning of pods, and only pay per second for their execution time. In a scaling scenario, you don’t need to wait for the Kubernetes cluster autoscaler to deploy VM compute nodes to run the additional pods. Virtual nodes are only supported with Linux pods and nodes. More information here about Virtual Nodes
To create an AKS cluster that can use multiple node pools, first enable two feature flags on your subscription. Multi-node pool clusters use a virtual machine scale set (VMSS) to manage the deployment and configuration of the Kubernetes nodes. With this Preview feature you can run Linux Containers and Windows Containers on the same Cluster. More information here about VM Scale sets (Preview)
3, Authentication
The service principal is needed to dynamically create and manage other Azure resources such as an Azure load balancer or container registry (ACR). To interact with Azure APIs, an AKS cluster requires an Azure Active Directory (AD) service principal. More information about the Service Principal can be found here
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) can be configured to use Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for user authentication. In this configuration, you can sign in to an AKS cluster by using your Azure AD authentication token.
Cluster administrators can configure Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) based on a user’s identity or directory group membership. More information about RBAC for AKS
4. Networking
Configuring the virtual Networks for your Azure Kubernetes Cluster is important for the right IP range but later on also for the Network Security Groups (NSG).
Here you see an example of the Kubernetes NSG which is connected to the Internet by Default after installation, you can deep dive into security but be careful which settings you do here because Microsoft resources must have access to service the Azure Kubernetes Cluster.
NSG created after installation is finished
NSG Rule set Inbound and outbound
In a container-based microservices approach to application development, application components must work together to process their tasks. Kubernetes provides various resources that enable this application communication. You can connect to and expose applications internally or externally. To build highly available applications, you can load balance your applications. More complex applications may require configuration of ingress traffic for SSL/TLS termination or routing of multiple components. For security reasons, you may also need to restrict the flow of network traffic into or between pods and nodes.
Best practices for network connectivity and security in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS):
Keep Azure Monitoring Enabled and Connect to your Log Analytics workspace or create a new workspace for Container monitoring of your Azure Kubernetes Cluster.
Azure Monitor for containers is a feature designed to monitor the performance of container workloads deployed to either Azure Container Instances or managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Monitoring your containers is critical, especially when you’re running a production cluster, at scale, with multiple applications.
Azure Monitor for containers gives you performance visibility by collecting memory and processor metrics from controllers, nodes, and containers that are available in Kubernetes through the Metrics API. Container logs are also collected. After you enable monitoring from Kubernetes clusters, metrics and logs are automatically collected for you through a containerized version of the Log Analytics agent for Linux. Metrics are written to the metrics store and log data is written to the logs store associated with your Log Analytics workspace.
6. Tags
When you build more Azure Kubernetes Clusters for different departments or teams you can TAG your Clusters for organizing your billing and security for example. Here you find more information about tagging.
After this you click on the last step Review and Create The Azure portal will do a validation of your Azure Kubernetes Cluster settings, and when it’s validated you hit Create. But when you want more Automation, you can download the JSON ARM template first and use that.
Installing Azure Kubernetes Cluster via Cloud Shell
Azure Cloud Shell AKS CLI
Azure hosts Azure Cloud Shell, an interactive shell environment that you can use through your browser. Cloud Shell lets you use either bash or PowerShell to work with Azure services. You can use the Cloud Shell pre-installed commands to run the code in this article without having to install anything on your local environment.
Here you see an Example of AKS CLI with Auto Scaler with max count of nodes 😉
Installing Azure Kubernetes Cluster via Template
Create Azure Kubernetes Cluster via Template in the Portal
Now you have your Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Cluster (AKS) running in the Cloud, you want to deploy your Container workloads on the Cluster. In the following steps you see different deployments.
Deploy Container workload with Azure DevOps Project
Deployment Center
First you select your repository where your source code is of your workload.
Set the information right and click Next.
Simple example Click Next
Create a Container Registry.
Building Pipeline with Azure DevOps.
Here you see the Building in Microsoft Azure DevOps.
Build, test, and deploy in any language, to any cloud—or on-premises. Run in parallel on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and deploy containers to individual hosts or Kubernetes.
Here you find all the information about Microsoft Azure DevOpsfor your workloads, code and Deployments.
Deploying Container workload completed with Azure DevOps.
Deploy Container Workloads via Visual Studio Code
When you download and install Visual Studio Code on your computer, you can install the Azure Kubernetes extension for VSCode.
Here you see Microsoft Visual Studio Code connected with my Azure subscription where my Azure Kubernetes Cluster is running. With the standard Helm Repository packages for deployment to your AKS Cluster. Here you see a WordPress yaml file which I deployed to the Kubernetes Cluster on Azure.
Just Select your Package and Install on Azure Kubernetes.
From here you can into the Container and read the logs.
I’m using Visual Studio Code a lot for Azure Kubernetes but also for Docker Containers and images.
Making Azure ARM JSON templates and this great for Infrastructure as Code.
Azure Monitoring with Container Insights
In One Dashboard you can see the Status of all your Clusters
Azure Monitor Container Insights Live View
Because we installed Azure Monitor for Containers on the Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Cluster, we can live see what is happening inside the Kubernetes Cluster with the containers. This is a great feature when you have a issue with a Container for troubleshooting fast and see what is happening.
Conclusion
Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Cluster is fast and easy to manage. You can upgrade your Cluster without downtime of your Container workload. With Azure Monitor for Containers you can see what’s happening inside the container and you can set alerts when something went wrong. This keeps you in Controle of the solution. With Deployment center alias Azure DevOps Projects you can deploy your workload via Azure DevOps Pipeline and work on versioning, testplans, Azure DevOps repo and work together with a Team on the following releases. Working with Azure Kubernetes Multi node pools with Linux and Windows on the same Cluster is possible. Try it yourself and start with a Proof of Concept for your Business.
Azure Cloud Shell is an interactive, browser-accessible shell for managing Azure resources. It provides the flexibility of choosing the shell experience that best suits the way you work. Linux users can opt for a Bash experience, while Windows users can opt for PowerShell.
In this quick overview you will see the possibilities of Microsoft Azure Cloudshell functionalities and tools.
Azure Cloudshell Editor
Azure Cloud Shell includes an integrated file editor built from the open-source Monaco Editor. The Cloud Shell editor supports features such as language highlighting, the command palette, and a file explorer.
This can be handy with JSON and YAML files.
When you have your App YAML file for your Azure Kubernetes Cluster on your Cloud drive, you can edit the file online with your browser and save it in the Azure Cloud. I like this editor in the Cloudshell, especially when you are not behind your own laptop or pc and you have to make a quick change.
I have a Kubernetes Cluster installed on Azure and with this editor I can explore my Azure logs, Cache, and config files for the information I need to work with in Bash, Powershell to do my CLI commands for example 😉
For the Powershell Gurus
Azure PowerShell provides a set of cmdlets that use the Azure Resource Manager model for managing your Azure resources. Learn here more about Azure Powershell
Kubectl is a command line interface for running commands against Kubernetes clusters. kubectl looks for a file named config in the $HOME/.kube directory. You can specify other kubeconfig files by setting the KUBECONFIG environment variable or by setting the –kubeconfig flag. Read here more about Kubectl
Terraform CLI is Available
What is Terraform?
Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions.
Configuration files describe to Terraform the components needed to run a single application or your entire datacenter. Terraform generates an execution plan describing what it will do to reach the desired state, and then executes it to build the described infrastructure. As the configuration changes, Terraform is able to determine what changed and create incremental execution plans which can be applied.
The infrastructure Terraform can manage includes low-level components such as compute instances, storage, and networking, as well as high-level components such as DNS entries, SaaS features, etc.
The key features of Terraform are:
Infrastructure as Code
Infrastructure is described using a high-level configuration syntax. This allows a blueprint of your datacenter to be versioned and treated as you would any other code. Additionally, infrastructure can be shared and re-used.
Execution Plans
Terraform has a “planning” step where it generates an execution plan. The execution plan shows what Terraform will do when you call apply. This lets you avoid any surprises when Terraform manipulates infrastructure.
Resource Graph
Terraform builds a graph of all your resources, and parallelizes the creation and modification of any non-dependent resources. Because of this, Terraform builds infrastructure as efficiently as possible, and operators get insight into dependencies in their infrastructure.
Change Automation
Complex changesets can be applied to your infrastructure with minimal human interaction. With the previously mentioned execution plan and resource graph, you know exactly what Terraform will change and in what order, avoiding many possible human errors.
It’s really easy to Upload or Download your Files.
AzCopyis a command-line utility designed for copying data to/from Microsoft Azure Blob, File, and Table storage, using simple commands designed for optimal performance. You can copy data between a file system and a storage account, or between storage accounts.
Microsoft Azure Cloudshell is very powerful to work with, creating your infrastructure from the Command Line Interface (CLI) or with JSON / YAML scripts. Some features or commands are not available in the Azure portal and that’s where Azure Cloudshell can help you out. Try the different Azure Cloudshell Tools and look what you like most to use for your work. From here you can work on any device with a browser and do your work. #MVPBuzz
Watch live as technology leaders from across industries share the latest breakthroughs and trends, and explore innovative ways to create solutions. After the keynotes, select Microsoft Build sessions will stream live—dive deep into what’s new and what’s next for developer tools and tech.
Discover and experience new ways to build, modernize, and migrate your applications. Get hands-on experiences with tools like Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that can help you dynamically scale your application infrastructure.
Quickly and easily build, train, and deploy your machine learning models using Azure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, and ONNX. Uncover insights from all your content—documents, images, and media—with Azure Search and Cognitive Services.
Join Microsoft for hands-on learning to discover how tools like Visual Studio live share can help you collaborate with your peers instantly.
Come learn how to build an end-to-end continuous delivery pipeline that is fast and secure with Azure DevOps technologies. Spend less time maintaining your toolset and more time focusing on customer value.
Understand how frameworks like Xamarin and .NET can help you reach customers on all platforms. Learn how to use the same languages, APIs, and data structures across all mobile development platforms.
Learn how mixed reality helps you bring your work and data to life when you need it, and where you need it. Start building secure, collaborative mixed reality solutions today using intelligent services, best-in-class hardware, and cross-platform tools.
Learn to connect your devices to the cloud using flexible IoT solutions that integrate with your existing infrastructure. Collect untapped data and form valuable insights that help you create better customer experiences and generate new streams of revenue.
Azure Stack HCI solutions are available for customers who want to run virtualized applications on modern hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) to lower costs and improve performance. Azure Stack HCI solutions feature the same software-defined compute, storage, and networking software as Azure Stack, and can integrate with Azure for hybrid capabilities such as cloud-based backup, site recovery, monitoring, and more.
Adopting hybrid cloud is a journey and it is important to have a strategy that takes into account different workloads, skillsets, and tools. Microsoft is the only leading cloud vendor that delivers a comprehensive set of hybrid cloud solutions, so customers can use the right tool for the job without compromise.
In this episode, Isaac Levin (@isaac2004) joins us to share how the developer exception resolution experience can be better with Azure Monitor and Snapshot Debugger. The discussion talks about what Azure Monitor is and an introduction to Snapshot Debugger, and quickly goes into demos showcasing what developers can do with Snapshot Debugger.
Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for web developers on multiple platforms. Use it to monitor your live web application. It will automatically detect performance anomalies. It includes powerful analytics tools to help you diagnose issues and to understand what users actually do with your app. It’s designed to help you continuously improve performance and usability. It works for apps on a wide variety of platforms including .NET, Node.js and Java EE, hosted on-premises, hybrid, or any public cloud. It integrates with your DevOps process, and has connection points to a variety of development tools. It can monitor and analyze telemetry from mobile apps by integrating with Visual Studio App Center.
