Azure Learning

aks

Properties2
tagscompute, containers, kubernetes, orchestration
aliasesAKS, Kubernetes

2 min read

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

What it is

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes offering: Microsoft provides the control plane (API server, etcd) for free, and you manage only the worker nodes in a node pool. It brings full Kubernetes orchestration — scheduling, scaling, self-healing, service discovery, rolling updates — to Azure.

Why it exists

When you outgrow single containers (ACI) and need fleet orchestration — dozens of containers, autoscaling, load balancing, health probes, rolling deployments — you need Kubernetes. Running K8s yourself is hard; AKS offloads the control plane so you focus on workloads, and integrates with Azure networking/storage/identity.

Key ideas

  • Components: control plane (managed, free, SLA’d) + node pools (your VM-based nodes, billed); a kubelet runs on each node.
  • Workload objects: Pods, Deployments, Services, Ingress; namespaces for isolation.
  • Networking: integrates with Azure Virtual Network via CNI (Azure CNI or kubenet); Azure Load Balancer fronts Service (LoadBalancer) workloads.
  • Storage: persistent volumes via Azure Disks / Azure Files CSI drivers.
  • Scaling: Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) and cluster autoscaler to add/remove nodes; az aks` CLI manages the cluster.
  • Registry: pulls images from Azure Container Registry (ACR integration).
  • Identity: AKS uses managed identity + Azure RBAC / Kubernetes RBAC integration.

How it fits (diagram)

aks - Microsoft diagram

Diagrams courtesy of Microsoft Learn / Azure docs: aks/intro-kubernetes

Exam notes

  • AKS = managed orchestration; you pay for nodes, control plane is included.
  • Use AKS for fleet/orchestrated containers; ACI for single/serverless containers. “VMs vs containers vs orchestration” is a core AZ-104 decision.
  • Commands: az aks create, az aks get-credentials, kubectl apply.
  • AZ-104 focus is high-level: understand what AKS provides and when to pick it — not deep kubectl admin.
  • Note: Functions (azure-functions) remain the serverless alternative to running your own pods.

Path MOC · aci · acr · azure-functions

📘 Source: Microsoft Learn — Aks

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