Upgrading Azure #Kubernetes Cluster and Set #Azure monitor Alerts on #AKS

Current version of Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure.

Upgrading Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Services

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. In addition, the service is free, you only pay for the agent nodes within your clusters, not for the masters.

AKS clusters support Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). An AKS cluster can also be configured to integrate with Azure Active Directory. In this configuration, Kubernetes access can be configured based on Azure Active Directory identity and group membership.
For more information, see, Integrate Azure Active Directory with AKS.

From here I will do a step-by-step Upgrade of a Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Cluster to a newer version and set Azure Monitor alert rule active for the future to get an Alert notification when a colleague is upgrading the AKS Services.

Here you see all the newer versions of Kubernetes.

Upgrading to version 1.11.1 of Kubernetes.

IMPORTANT NOTE :

When upgrading an AKS cluster, Kubernetes minor versions cannot be skipped. For example, upgrades between 1.8.x -> 1.9.x or 1.9.x -> 1.10.x are allowed, however 1.8 -> 1.10 is not. To upgrade, from 1.8 -> 1.10, you need to upgrade first from 1.8 -> 1.9 and then another do another upgrade from 1.9 -> 1.10

KubeCluster Activity Log

At the green arrow on this picture you can download the activities into CSV file. At the Red arrow you see the User ID who initiated the Upgrade of the Kubernetes Cluster. This is important information for Azure Alert monitoring.

10 minutes later Kubernetes Cluster is Upgraded to version 1.11.1

Upgrade is done.

We now do a minor Upgrade of Kubernetes from version 1.11.1 to 1.11.2 to get the newest version on Azure.
Click on 1.11.2 version and hit Save.

 

Microsoft Azure Monitoring Alerts

When you click on the second activity of the Upgrade you see at arrow 2 that you can add an Activity Log Alert by Azure monitoring.

Creating Rule Alerts.

1. Define Alert condition is already set. We want an Alert notification on Upgrading KubeCluster.
2. Define Alert details, must be set.
3. Define Action Group, must be set to create the Alert Rule.

2. Define the Alert Details.

3. Define Action Group : Click on + New Action Group

Click on OK

Created Action Group name AKSAdmins

An action group is a collection of notification preferences defined by the user. Azure Monitor and Service Health alerts are configured to use a specific action group when the alert is triggered. Various alerts may use the same action group or different action groups depending on the user’s requirements.

More information on Creating and managing action groups in the Azure portal can be found here

For information on how to use Azure Resource Manager templates to configure action groups, see Action group Resource Manager templates.

 

From here you can Create the Alert Rule and make it Active.

Azure Monitor Alerts with one rule Enabled.

Here is our Active KubeCluster Alert Rule.

Now we will get a notification when a Colleague is Upgrading our KubeCluster in the Future 😉

KubeCluster is now running the latest available version of Kubernetes.

Kubernetes Cluster nodes are Healthy and running version 1.11.2

Here you see in the Kubernetes Dashboard the Node version of Kubernetes.

For Developers and DevOps it’s Great to work with Microsoft Visual Studio Code and the Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) to work in a CI/CD Pipeline, to create continuous business applications in the Cloud.

Here is my Azure KubeCluster running in Visual Studio Code 🙂

And at last, most important thing is that my Application is running on my Azure Kubernetes Cluster for the Business My Test Site.

Hope this blogpost is useful for you and your business to manage your AKS Cluster in the Microsoft Cloud.

More information About Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) :

 Upgrade an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster via Azure CLI

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Docs

Monitor Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) container health (preview)

Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Services website Start Free here

Follow Containers in the Cloud Community Group on LinkedIn

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Installing #Azure Service Fabric Cluster on Windows Server 2019 Insiders #Containers #Winserv

Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Cluster

Azure Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform that makes it easy to package, deploy, and manage scalable and reliable microservices and containers. Service Fabric also addresses the significant challenges in developing and managing cloud native applications. Developers and administrators can avoid complex infrastructure problems and focus on implementing mission-critical, demanding workloads that are scalable, reliable, and manageable. Service Fabric represents the next-generation platform for building and managing these enterprise-class, tier-1, cloud-scale applications running in containers.

In the following Step-by-Step Guide I created a Standalone Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Cluster
on Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview for DevOps testing :

First I downloaded the Contents of Service Fabric Standalone package for Windows Server here

Several sample cluster configuration files are installed with the setup package. ClusterConfig.Unsecure.DevCluster.json is the simplest cluster configuration: an unsecure, three-node cluster running on a single computer. Other config files describe single or multi-machine clusters secured with X.509 certificates or Windows security. You don’t need to modify any of the default config settings for this tutorial, but look through the config file and get familiar with the settings.

I made the Unsecure three-node Cluster running on Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview in my MVPLAB.

 

Open Powershell in Administrator modus and run the Script :

.\CreateServiceFabricCluster.ps1 -ClusterConfigFilePath .\ClusterConfig.Unsecure.DevCluster.json -AcceptEULA

Connect-ServiceFabricCluster

 

Service Fabric Explorer (SFX) is an open-source tool for inspecting and managing Azure Service Fabric clusters. Service Fabric Explorer is a desktop application for Windows, macOS and Linux.

I Installed Azure Service Fabric Explorer to visualize the Cluster.

Here we got Azure Service Fabric 3-Node Cluster running on Windows Server 2019 Insiders

Azure Service Fabric CLI

The Azure Service Fabric command-line interface (CLI) is a command-line utility for interacting with and managing Service Fabric entities. The Service Fabric CLI can be used with either Windows or Linux clusters. The Service Fabric CLI runs on any platform where Python is supported.

Prior to installation, make sure your environment has both Python and pip installed.
The CLI supports Python versions 2.7, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7. Python 3.x is the recommended version, since Python 2.7 will reach end of support soon.

You can download the latest Python version here

Check the Python version and the Pip version by typing :

python –version
Pip –version

The Pip version which is delivered via Python has to be updated with the following command :

python -m pip install –upgrade pip

We now have pip version 18.0 instead of 10.0.1

Installing Service Fabric CLI by command :

pip install -I sfctl

Done ! Service Fabric CLI is installed on my Windows 10 Surface.

sfctl -h 

Now we have installed Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Cluster on Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview and the Service Fabric CLI on Windows 10, we now can connect to the 3-node Fabric Cluster via CLI.
Because we are working under Windows 10 and not on the host itself we have to set an endpoint connection :

sfctl cluster select –endpoint http://192.168.2.15:19080

sfctl cluster health

sfctl node list

Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise and Service Fabric SDK

As a Developer or DevOps you like to work from Microsoft Visual Studio to deploy your Apps, Microservices or Containers to the Azure Service Fabric Cluster.

You need to install the Service Fabric SDK in Visual Studio before you can deploy :

Select Service Fabric Application at New Project

Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise : Service Fabric SDK must be installed

Installing Microsoft Azure Service Fabric SDK

Done.

Now you can make your Service Fabric Container.

Happy Developing 😉

More information on Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Cluster :

Service Fabric on GitHub

Add or remove nodes to a standalone Service Fabric cluster running on Windows Server :

Scaling your Azure Service Fabric Cluster

More info :

Microsoft Azure Service Fabric documentation

Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Cluster Learning Path

Scale and Upgrade your Azure Kubernetes Cluster #AKS #Containers #Azure #Kubernetes #DevOps #Cloud

I start with a 2 Node Kubernetes Cluster.

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. In addition, the service is free, you only pay for the agent nodes within your clusters, not for the masters.

When you have a Web App like Joomla CMS running on Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) and you need more capacity or performance, you can really easy Scale-Up and Scale-Down when needed. It is easy to scale an AKS cluster to a different number of nodes. Select the desired number of nodes and run the az aks scale command. When scaling down, nodes will be carefully cordoned and drained to minimize disruption to running applications. When scaling up, the az command waits until nodes are marked Ready by the Kubernetes cluster.

Scaling your Azure Kubernetes Cluster (AKS)

In the following step-by-step guide I’m scaling my AKS Cluster from 2 nodes to 4 node Kubernetes Cluster :

Here you can scale your Cluster to the right Size
Click on Save to execute.

One AKS Cluster can Scale-Up to 100 vCPU’s and 350 GB of Memory 😉

It’s updating now my 2 Node AKS Cluster to 4 Nodes.
( wait a couple of minutes )

Done !

In Visual Studio Code a got 4 Nodes

In the AKS Cluster Health Monitor you see the Update of the Config.

When you open the Kubernetes Dashboard you see the load on the 4 Nodes.

When you don’t need a 4 Node Cluster performance and/or capacity any more because of the workload, you can scale your Cluster back to 2 Node Cluster for example.

Scaling down to 2 Node AKS Cluster.

Back to 2 Node Azure Kubernetes Cluster.

Just Refresh in Visual Studio Code
2 Node Cluster Again.

And my Joomla CMS Web App is running on 2 Node AKS Cluster.

This was Scaling your Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Cluster (AKS), the Next step-by-step guide I’m Upgrading my Azure Kubernetes Cluster (AKS) to a New version.

Upgrading your Azure Kubernetes Cluster (AKS)

My Current version of AKS is 1.10.5

I’m Upgrading to Kubernetes version 1.10.6
Click on Save to Execute.

After +/- 10 minutes my AKS Cluster was Up-to-Date.

with kubectl version you see the Changes in Visual Studio Code (VSC)

And of course you get notified by the Azure Portal when your Upgrade is Done 🙂

When you like to work from Azure CLI or Cloudshell or VSC you can Upgrade your Kubernetes Cluster from here

More information about Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) :

Kubernetes versions on GitHub

Kubernetes Documentation

Microsoft Azure AKS Docs

Hope this easy Quick Step-by-Step Guides are helpful for you and your Business.

#Azure Cloud Shell editor with Visual Studio Code inside (Project Monaco) #VSC #IaC

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. But now with Project Monaco my favorite tool Visual Studio Code is integrated in Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell 🙂 Awesome for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) like I did with Terraform 

Just type Code . in Azure Cloud Shell

Command Palette VSC in Azure Cloud Shell

Just Cool in https://shell.azure.com

More information about Microsoft Azure Cloud Shell :

Azure Cloud Shell Overview docs

Here you find more information about the Monaco Editor

Your Microsoft-managed admin machine in Azure, for Azure

Creating VM Cluster on Azure #Cloud with Terraform #IaC #Azure #Terraform #Linux #Winserv

Type az and you should see this Azure CLI

Type Terraform and you should see the terraform commands

 

Install and configure Terraform to provision VMs and other infrastructure into Azure

Before you begin with Terraform and deploying your solution to Microsoft Azure you have to install Azure CLI and Terraform for your OS.

In the following step-by-step guide we will deploy a VM Cluster with Terraform into Microsoft Azure Cloud Services.

First we open Powershell in Administrator mode :

You should have your Terraform script ready.

It’s great to edit your Terraform script in Visual Studio Code

Create a Terraform configuration file
In this section, you create a file that contains resource definitions for your infrastructure.
Create a new file named main.tf.
Copy following sample resource definitions into the newly created main.tf file:

---

resource “azurerm_resource_group” “test” {
name = “acctestrg”
location = “West US 2”
}

resource “azurerm_virtual_network” “test” {
name = “acctvn”
address_space = [“10.0.0.0/16”]
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
}

resource “azurerm_subnet” “test” {
name = “acctsub”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
virtual_network_name = “${azurerm_virtual_network.test.name}”
address_prefix = “10.0.2.0/24”
}

resource “azurerm_public_ip” “test” {
name = “publicIPForLB”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
public_ip_address_allocation = “static”
}

resource “azurerm_lb” “test” {
name = “loadBalancer”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”

frontend_ip_configuration {
name = “publicIPAddress”
public_ip_address_id = “${azurerm_public_ip.test.id}”
}
}

resource “azurerm_lb_backend_address_pool” “test” {
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
loadbalancer_id = “${azurerm_lb.test.id}”
name = “BackEndAddressPool”
}

resource “azurerm_network_interface” “test” {
count = 2
name = “acctni${count.index}”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”

ip_configuration {
name = “testConfiguration”
subnet_id = “${azurerm_subnet.test.id}”
private_ip_address_allocation = “dynamic”
load_balancer_backend_address_pools_ids = [“${azurerm_lb_backend_address_pool.test.id}”]
}
}

resource “azurerm_managed_disk” “test” {
count = 2
name = “datadisk_existing_${count.index}”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
storage_account_type = “Standard_LRS”
create_option = “Empty”
disk_size_gb = “1023”
}

resource “azurerm_availability_set” “avset” {
name = “avset”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
platform_fault_domain_count = 2
platform_update_domain_count = 2
managed = true
}

resource “azurerm_virtual_machine” “test” {
count = 2
name = “acctvm${count.index}”
location = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.location}”
availability_set_id = “${azurerm_availability_set.avset.id}”
resource_group_name = “${azurerm_resource_group.test.name}”
network_interface_ids = [“${element(azurerm_network_interface.test.*.id, count.index)}”]
vm_size = “Standard_DS1_v2”

# Uncomment this line to delete the OS disk automatically when deleting the VM
# delete_os_disk_on_termination = true

# Uncomment this line to delete the data disks automatically when deleting the VM
# delete_data_disks_on_termination = true

storage_image_reference {
publisher = “Canonical”
offer = “UbuntuServer”
sku = “16.04-LTS”
version = “latest”
}

storage_os_disk {
name = “myosdisk${count.index}”
caching = “ReadWrite”
create_option = “FromImage”
managed_disk_type = “Standard_LRS”
}

# Optional data disks
storage_data_disk {
name = “datadisk_new_${count.index}”
managed_disk_type = “Standard_LRS”
create_option = “Empty”
lun = 0
disk_size_gb = “1023”
}

storage_data_disk {
name = “${element(azurerm_managed_disk.test.*.name, count.index)}”
managed_disk_id = “${element(azurerm_managed_disk.test.*.id, count.index)}”
create_option = “Attach”
lun = 1
disk_size_gb = “${element(azurerm_managed_disk.test.*.disk_size_gb, count.index)}”
}

os_profile {
computer_name = “hostname”
admin_username = “testadmin”
admin_password = “Password1234!”
}

os_profile_linux_config {
disable_password_authentication = false
}

tags {
environment = “staging”
}
}

---

Type : terraform init

You should see this screen.

Type : az login

We now logging into Microsoft Azure subscription.

https://microsoft.com/devicelogin

Insert the code from your Powershell screen.

Now we have the Terraform INIT running and we are connected to our Azure Subscription 😉

Type : terraform plan

It will refreshing the state and getting ready for deployment.

Type : terraform apply

and then type : yes <enter>

Terraform is now creating the azure resources

Azure resource group acctestrg is made

Terraform deployment VM Cluster on Azure is Ready 😉

Azure VM Cluster is running.

When you want to remove the complete Azure VM Cluster with terraform, it’s really easy :

Type : terraform destroy

and then type : yes <enter>

Azure resources are being deleted via terraform script

Terraform destroyed the Azure VM Cluster

All Azure Resources of the VM Cluster are removed.

Hope this step-by-step guide deploying infrastructure as Code with terraform will help you with your own Cloud solutions in Microsoft azure.

Ps. don’t forget to install Visual Studio Code Azure Terraform extension and play !

#MVPbuzz

A Great #Microservices E-book about Architecture for Containerized #dotnet Apps #Docker #Kubernetes #Containers

Enterprises are increasingly realizing cost savings, solving deployment problems, and improving DevOps and production operations by using containers. Microsoft has been releasing container innovations for Windows and Linux by creating products like Azure Container Service and Azure Service Fabric, and by partnering with industry leaders like Docker, Mesosphere, and Kubernetes. These products deliver container solutions that help companies build and deploy applications at cloud speed and scale, whatever their choice of platform or tools.
Docker is becoming the de facto standard in the container industry, supported by the most significant vendors in the Windows and Linux ecosystems. (Microsoft is one of the main cloud vendors supporting Docker.) In the future, Docker will probably be ubiquitous in any datacenter in the cloud or on-premises.
In addition, the microservices architecture is emerging as an important approach for distributed mission-critical applications. In a microservice-based architecture, the application is built on a collection of services that can be developed, tested, deployed, and versioned independent

You can download .NET Microservices Architecture for Containerized .NET Application E-book here

eShoponContainers 

#Microsoft Azure DevOps Projects and Infrastructure as Code #Azure #IaC #DevOps

Microsoft Azure DevOps Project for CI/CD

The Azure DevOps Project presents a simplified experience where you bring your existing code and Git repository, or choose from one of the sample applications to create a continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipeline to Azure. The DevOps project automatically creates Azure resources such as a new Azure virtual machine, creates and configures a release pipeline in VSTS that includes a build definition for CI, sets up a release definition for CD, and then creates an Azure Application Insights resource for monitoring.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) gives you benefits like :

• Consistency in naming conventions of Azure components
• Working together in the same way with your company policies
• Reusability of Templates
• Automatic documentation and CMDB of deployments in your repository
• Rapid deployments
• Flexibility and Scalability in code for Azure Deployments

As an Large Enterprise Company you don’t want to Click and Type in the Azure Portal with lot of employees to get the job done in a consistent way. The changes and deployments will be different in time because people can make mistakes. For Developers it’s important to make your building process before you publish your application, so why not for DevOps and ITpro to do the same thing for Infrastructure.

In the following step-by-step guide you will learn how to make a Microsoft Azure DevOps Project and make a CI/CD Pipeline deploying a virtual machine with your ASP.net Application.

Prerequisites :
An Azure subscription. You can get one free through Visual Studio Dev Essentials.
Access to a GitHub or external Git repository that contains .NET, Java, PHP, Node, Python, or static web code.

Here you find the GitHub for Developer Guide

When you have your prerequisites in place you can start with the following steps :

Search for DevOps at All Services in the Azure Portal

Select .NET and Click on Next

You can see where you are in the flow of creating your CI/CD Pipeline, when you need a Azure SQL Database for your ASP.net application you can select Add a Database (Option). This will provide you Azure SQL as a Service (PaaS).

Database-as-a-Service
(I didn’t Choose for SQL)

In this step select Virtual Machine and click Next

From here you can create a VSTS account or your Existing account of Visual Studio Team Services. After selecting VSTS you can manage your Azure settings and by clicking on Change you can select the Azure options.

 

Select the Virtual Machine you need for your Application.

Here you see the Deployment Running

Important for Infrastructure as Code (IaC), the Deployment template can be saved into the library and / or you can download it for reusability or make your own policies into the template.

When you save it into the Azure Library you get the release notes and who’s the publisher

In the Microsoft Azure DevOps Project main Dashboard you will see the status of your CI/CD Pipeline and that release is in progress or not. On the right-side of the Dashboard you see the Azure resources like the Application endpoint, the Virtual Machine and Application Insights for monitoring. When the CI/CD Pipeline deployment is succeeded you can browse to your ASP.net Application.

Your Application.

Your Virtual Machine Running and in the Monitoring.

The Microsoft Azure DevOps Project CI/CD Pipeline is Completed.

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 J2EE, hosted on-premises or in the 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 and HockeyApp.

You can drill down into the error to see what is happening.

Azure Application Insights topology

Application Insights is aimed at the development team, to help you understand how your app is performing and how it’s being used. It monitors:
Request rates, response times, and failure rates – Find out which pages are most popular, at what times of day, and where your users are. See which pages perform best. If your response times and failure rates go high when there are more requests, then perhaps you have a resourcing problem.
Dependency rates, response times, and failure rates – Find out whether external services are slowing you down.
Exceptions – Analyse the aggregated statistics, or pick specific instances and drill into the stack trace and related requests. Both server and browser exceptions are reported.
Page views and load performance – reported by your users’ browsers.
AJAX calls from web pages – rates, response times, and failure rates.
User and session counts.
Performance counters from your Windows or Linux server machines, such as CPU, memory, and network usage.
Host diagnostics from Docker or Azure.
Diagnostic trace logs from your app – so that you can correlate trace events with requests.
Custom events and metrics that you write yourself in the client or server code, to track business events such as items sold or games won.

You can also drill down into Microsoft Azure Log Analytics and run your analytics queries to get the right information you want for troubleshooting. More information on Azure Log Analytics and queries is on MSFT docs.

From App Insight we see it was an Exception error

Because the Azure DevOps Project is connected with VSTS you can follow the Build and Release here to and you got your documentation of the CI/CD Pipeline.

From here you can work with your Developers and DevOps and manage the User and Groups security in de CI/CD Pipeline for the next Build. Working together to build innovative apps via VSTS from one Dashboard :

VSTS Dashboard

Next day you see it was one time error and the Pipeline is running Fine 😉

For more information about all the possibilities with Microsoft Azure DevOps Project go to MSFT Docs

DevOps and Microsoft :

DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.

To Learn DevOps please visit this Microsoft DevOps Site

Conclusion : 

Invest in your CI/CD Pipeline and make your own environment is important before you deploy into Azure production for your business. Make your ARM Templates and Code in repositories like Git or VSTS. When you have this all in place your are more in control of your consistent Deployments and Changes in the Azure Cloud. I hope this blogpost is useful for you and your Company. Start today with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and get the benefits 😉