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AKS, where to start?

  • February 20, 2020
  • 10 min read
Cloud and Virtualization Architect. Florent is specializing in public, hybrid, and private cloud technologies. He is a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management and an MCSE in Private Cloud.
Cloud and Virtualization Architect. Florent is specializing in public, hybrid, and private cloud technologies. He is a Microsoft MVP in Cloud and Datacenter Management and an MCSE in Private Cloud.


AKS

Because modern applications are now using containers, I’ll present to you today a PaaS service, for containers, with Azure Kubernetes Services. As you understand with the name, the orchestrator used is based on Kubernetes, a Google technology.

The advantage of AKS is that you just manage your environment, without taking care of the OS.

You can deploy AKS on Availability Zone now (announced during Ignite 2019).

To start, search in the Azure Market place for AKS and click on Create:

Azure Market place for AKS

Choose where to deploy resources, a name for your cluster, the region, the Kubernetes version and the DN name. Choose how many nodes you want and the size of each nodes. The master is managed by Microsoft:

Create cubernets cluster

Choose to which Virtual Network you want to connect your AKS environment:

Choose Virtual Network

As you can see, the AKS Object and the VNet has been deployed in the resource group that you provided and another RG has been created with name MC_RGName_ClusterName_Region. This RG will contains the public IP, the NSG, the Load Balancer and finally, the VMSS:

AKS Object

I’ve my 3 nodes in my VMSS:

3 nodes

Go now on https://shell.azure.com/ and connect to your shell. To connect to your AKS cluster, adapt the following command:

credentials

To verify that your nodes are present, use the following commands:

 kubectl get nodes

To see the admin interface of your AKS cluster, use the following command:

It will open to you a new tab, to browse your Kubernetes admin console. If you have warning, execute the following command:

Kubernetes admin console

Kubernetes admin console

Now, we will deploy a first application, a wordpress website, from the admin interface. Click on Create on the top of right and paste the following code, to create the secret for the DB:

Secrets

Now, we will create our MySQL container:

Kubernets overwiev

And now, the wordpress application:

Kubernets overwiev

As you can see in Azure, 2 new disks for data have been deployed, and a public IP for my wordpress:

2 new disks for data have been deployed

And in the load balancer, I’ve a new rule, to redirect the incoming traffic from port 80 to 80:

Load balancer

On Kubernetes, if you go on your Services you will see the public IP to browse the website:

Services

If you browse it, you will see your wordpress installation:

Wordpress installation

Wordpress installation

Currently, only one pod of this wordpress is running. To increase it, in Replicas Sets, click on Scale:

Replicas Sets

Replicas Sets details

And now, an application to vote, provided by Microsoft, directly from the console. I’ll create a file, and put the following code in it:

Azhure cloud shell

To deploy this, use the following command:

Kubectl apply

The application has been deployed correctly:

The application has been deployed correctly

Use the following command to get the public IP:

Kubectl get service azure

If you browse the IP, you will see the application:

Azure voting app

Don’t hesitate to use this AKS service to provide an HA and very easy manageable platform.

Hey! Found Florent’s insights useful? Looking for a cost-effective, high-performance, and easy-to-use hyperconverged platform?
Taras Shved
Taras Shved StarWind HCI Appliance Product Manager
Look no further! StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA) is a plug-and-play solution that combines compute, storage, networking, and virtualization software into a single easy-to-use hyperconverged platform. It's designed to significantly trim your IT costs and save valuable time. Interested in learning more? Book your StarWind HCA demo now to see it in action!