Industry Use Cases of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

• Microsoft Azure is a world-renown cloud platform for SMBs to large scale business, while Kubernetes is a modern-day approach that is rapidly becoming the regular methodology to manage cloud-native applications in a production environment. AKS has brought both solutions together that allow customers to create fully-managed Kubernetes clusters quickly and easily.

What is AKS ( Azure Kubernetes Service ) ?

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers serverless Kubernetes, an integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) experience and enterprise-grade security and governance. Unite your development and operations teams on a single platform to rapidly build, deliver and scale applications with confidence.
• AKS is an open-source fully managed container orchestration service that became available in June 2018 and is available on the Microsoft Azure public cloud that can be used to deploy, scale and manage Docker containers and container-based applications in a cluster environment.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) manages your hosted Kubernetes environment and makes it simple to deploy and manage containerized applications in Azure. Your AKS environment is enabled with features such as automated updates, self-healing, and easy scaling. The Kubernetes cluster master is managed by Azure and is free. You manage the agent nodes in the cluster and only pay for the VMs on which your nodes run.
• You can either create your cluster in the Azure portal or use the Azure CLI. When you create the cluster, you can use Resource Manager templates to automate cluster creation. With these templates, you specify features such as advanced networking, Azure Active Directory (AD) integration, and monitoring.

Azure Kubernetes Service Features

Microsoft Azure offers Azure Kubernetes Service that simplifies managed Kubernetes cluster deployment in the public cloud environment and also manages health and monitoring of managed Kubernetes service. Customers can create AKS clusters using the Azure portal or Azure CLI and can manage the agent nodes.

A template-based deployment using Terraform and Resource Manager templates can also be chosen to deploy the AKS cluster that manages the auto-configuration of master and worker nodes of the Kubernetes cluster. Some additional features such as advanced networking, monitoring, and Azure AD integration can also be configured. Let’s take a look into the features that Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers:

Clusters and Nodes

• Azure Kubernetes Service tutorial also include elaborations on the feature of clusters and nodes in AKS. AKS nodes run on Azure Virtual Machines, and AKS provides support for Kubernetes clusters running multiple node pools. With the changes in demand for resources, the number of cluster nodes or pods running services can be scaled accordingly.
• AKS also provides different Kubernetes versions and the cluster upgrades through the Azure Portal or CLI. You could also find support for creating GPU enabled node pools. Also, you have the privilege of mounting storage volumes for persistent data. You can use static and dynamic volumes according to your preference. The two options for storage volume support with Azure Kubernetes Service include Azure Disks and Azure Files.

Role-based access control (RBAC)

AKS easily integrates with Azure Active Directory (AD) to provide role-based access, security, and monitoring of Kubernetes architecture on the basis of identity and group membership. You can also monitor the performance of your AKS and the apps.

Integration of development tools

• Another important feature of AKS is the development tools such as Helm and Draft are seamlessly integrated with AKS where Azure Dev Spaces can provide a quicker and iterative Kubernetes development experience to the developers. Containers can be run and debugged directly in Azure Kubernetes environment with less stress on the configuration.
• AKS also offers support for Docker image format and can also integrate with Azure Container Registry (ACR) to provide private storage for Docker images. And, regular compliance with the industry standards such as System and Organization Controls (SOC), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and ISO make AKS more reliable across various business.

Virtual Networks and Ingress

Azure Kubernetes Service documentation will also include virtual networks and ingress. You can deploy an AKS cluster into an existing virtual network. Every pod in the cluster is attached with an IP address in the virtual network. The pods can communicate with other pods in the cluster as well as other nodes in the virtual network. The add-on of HTTP application routing can help in having flexible access to applications deployed on an AKS cluster. HTTP application routing solution can help in configuration of an ingress controller in an AKS cluster.

Running any workload in Azure Kubernetes Service

You can orchestrate any type of workload running in the AKS environment. You can move .NET apps to Windows Server containers, modernize Java apps in Linux containers, or run microservices in Azure Kubernetes Service. AKS will run any type of workload in the cluster environment.

Removes complexities

AKS removes your implementation, installation, maintenance, and security complexities in Azure cloud architecture. It also reduces substantial costs where no per-cluster charges are being imposed on you.

Common uses for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Lift and shift to containers with AKS

Easily migrate existing application to container(s) and run within the Azure managed Kubernetes service (AKS).

Microservices with AKS

Use AKS to simplify the deployment and management of microservices based architecture. AKS streamlines horizontal scaling, self-healing, load balancing, secret management.

Secure DevOps for AKS

DevOps and Kubernetes are better together. Implementing secure DevOps together with Kubernetes on Azure, you can achieve the balance between speed and security and deliver code faster at scale.

Azure IoT reference architecture

Use the AKS virtual node to provision pods inside ACI that start in seconds. This enables AKS to run with just enough capacity for your average workload.

Azure IoT reference architecture

This reference architecture shows a recommended architecture for IoT applications on Azure using PaaS (platform-as-a-service) components.

Machine Learning model training with AKS

Training of models using large datasets is a complex and resource intensive task. Use familiar tools such as TensorFlow and Kubeflow to simplify training of Machine Learning models.

Data Streaming scenario

Use AKS to easily ingest and process a real-time data stream with millions of data points collected via sensors. Perform fast analysis and computations to develop insights into complex scenarios quickly.

Azure Kubernetes Service Industry Use Cases

MAERSK

As part of its overall cloud migration strategy, Maersk chose Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to handle the automation and management of its containerized applications. (A containerized application is portable runtime software that is packaged with the dependencies and configuration files it needs in order to run, all in one place.) AKS fully supports the dynamic application environment in Maersk without requiring orchestration expertise.

The company uses AKS to help set up, upgrade, and scale resources as needed, without taking its critical applications offline. “We want to focus on using containers as a way to package and run our code in the cloud, not focus on the software required to construct and run the containers,” Hald says. “Using Kubernetes on Azure satisfies our objectives for efficient software development. It aligns well with our digital plans and our choice of open-source solutions for specific programming languages.”

Additionally, Maersk chose Azure over other cloud platforms because Azure offers a wider variety of available services and global scalability that supports the number and type of tasks the company wants to undertake. “The key question we ask is, ‘Where does the cloud stop and where does our work begin?’ For the Connected Vessel program, Azure made the most business sense, and it promotes agility,” says Hald. “Just the fact that we’re asking questions like this illustrates our paradigm shift to support digital transformation.”

FINASTRA

Kubernetes is at the heart of the FusionFabric.cloud platform, allowing the orchestration of Docker containers. Fintech applications can run and scale with ease on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), the next-generation service that builds on the Azure Container Service Engine (ACS). Currently on an ACS-engine, Finastra plans to migrate to AKS. AKS brings a fundamental benefit to the development team at Finastra, as Grévy explains, “AKS gives us a pure Kubernetes and Docker imaging environment that we don’t have to manage ourselves. Our team has regained the resources to accelerate deployment and maximize our PaaS offering.”

The team uses Azure Container Registry (ACR) to simplify container development, while geo-replication helps run disaster recovery procedures for different locations. The ACR can also audit whether data residency is running in the same jurisdiction as the banks. Inbuilt application auto scaling allows the team to manage cost burden and react quickly to meet spiked demands of partners and customers.

BOSCH

When Robert Bosch GmbH set out to solve the problem of drivers going the wrong way on highways, the goal was to save lives. Other services like this existed in Germany, but precision and speed cannot be compromised. Could Bosch get precise enough location data — in real time — to do this? The company knew it had to try.

The result is the wrong-way driver warning (WDW) service and software development kit (SDK). Designed for use by app developers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), the architecture pivots on an innovative map-matching algorithm and the scalability of Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) in tandem with Azure HDInsight tools that integrate with the Apache Kafka streaming platform.

AKS also offered the simplicity of a managed Kubernetes service in the cloud. It provided the elastic provisioning that Bosch wanted, without the need to manage its own infrastructure. In addition, the developers did not have to rethink all their design decisions. Instead, they could take the core business logic developed on-premises using the open-source tools they knew and run the solution virtually as is, within a faster infrastructure with a worldwide reach. The developers can deploy self-managed AKS clusters as needed, and they get the benefit of running their services within a secured network environment.

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