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Deploy a Windows Server container on an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster using the Azure portal

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Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes service that lets you quickly deploy and manage clusters. In this article, you deploy an AKS cluster that runs Windows Server containers using the Azure portal. You also deploy an ASP.NET sample application in a Windows Server container to the cluster.

Note

To get started with quickly provisioning an AKS cluster, this article includes steps to deploy a cluster with default settings for evaluation purposes only. Before deploying a production-ready cluster, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with our baseline reference architecture to consider how it aligns with your business requirements.

Before you begin

This quickstart assumes a basic understanding of Kubernetes concepts. For more information, see Kubernetes core concepts for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Create an AKS cluster

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

  2. On the Azure portal home page, select Create a resource.

  3. In the Categories section, select Containers > Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

  4. On the Basics tab, configure the following options:

    • Under Project details:
      • Select an Azure Subscription.
      • Create an Azure Resource group, such as myResourceGroup. While you can select an existing resource group, for testing or evaluation purposes, we recommend creating a resource group to temporarily host these resources and avoid impacting your production or development workloads.
    • Under Cluster details:

      • Set the Cluster preset configuration to Production Standard. For more details on preset configurations, see Cluster configuration presets in the Azure portal.

        Note

        You can change the preset configuration when creating your cluster by selecting Compare presets and choosing a different option. Screenshot of Create AKS cluster - portal preset options.

      • Enter a Kubernetes cluster name, such as myAKSCluster.

      • Select a Region for the AKS cluster.

      • Leave the Availability zones setting set to None.

      • Leave the AKS pricing tier setting set to Standard.

      • Leave the default value selected for Kubernetes version.

      • Leave the Automatic upgrade setting set to the recommended value, which is Enabled with patch.

      • Leave the Authentication and authorization setting set to Local accounts with Kubernetes RBAC.

        Screenshot showing how to configure an AKS cluster in Azure portal.

  5. Select Next. On the Node pools tab, add a new node pool:

    • Select Add node pool.

    • Enter a Node pool name, such as npwin. For a Windows node pool, the name must be six characters or fewer.

    • For Mode, select User.

    • For OS SKU, select Windows.

    • Leave the Availability zones setting set to None.

    • Leave the Enable Azure Spot instances checkbox unchecked.

    • For Node size, select Choose a size. On the Select a VM size page, select D2s_v3, then choose the Select button.

    • Leave the Scale method setting set to Autoscale.

    • Leave the Minimum node count and Maximum node count fields set to their default settings.

      Screenshot showing how to create a node pool running Windows Server.

  6. Leave all settings on the other tabs set to their defaults.

  7. Select Review + create to run validation on the cluster configuration. After validation completes, select Create to create the AKS cluster.

It takes a few minutes to create the AKS cluster. When your deployment is complete, navigate to your resource by either:

  • Selecting Go to resource, or
  • Browsing to the AKS cluster resource group and selecting the AKS resource. In this example you browse for myResourceGroup and select the resource myAKSCluster.

Connect to the cluster

You use kubectl, the Kubernetes command-line client, to manage your Kubernetes clusters. kubectl is already installed if you use Azure Cloud Shell. If you're unfamiliar with the Cloud Shell, review Overview of Azure Cloud Shell.

  1. Open Cloud Shell by selecting the >_ button at the top of the Azure portal page.

  2. Configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster using the az aks get-credentials command. The following command downloads credentials and configures the Kubernetes CLI to use them.

    az aks get-credentials --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster

  3. Verify the connection to your cluster using the kubectl get nodes command, which returns a list of the cluster nodes.

    kubectl get nodes

    The following sample output shows all the nodes in the cluster. Make sure the status of all nodes is Ready:

    NAME                                STATUS   ROLES   AGE   VERSION
aks-agentpool-41946322-vmss000001   Ready    agent   28h   v1.27.7
aks-agentpool-41946322-vmss000002   Ready    agent   28h   v1.27.7
aks-npwin-41946322-vmss000000       Ready    agent   28h   v1.27.7
aks-userpool-41946322-vmss000001    Ready    agent   28h   v1.27.7
aks-userpool-41946322-vmss000002    Ready    agent   28h   v1.27.7

Deploy the application

A Kubernetes manifest file defines a desired state for the cluster, such as which container images to run. In this quickstart, you use a manifest file to create all objects needed to run the ASP.NET sample application in a Windows Server container. This manifest file includes a Kubernetes deployment for the ASP.NET sample application and an external Kubernetes service to access the application from the internet.

The ASP.NET sample application is provided as part of the .NET Framework Samples and runs in a Windows Server container. AKS requires Windows Server containers to be based on images of Windows Server 2019 or greater. The Kubernetes manifest file must also define a node selector to tell your AKS cluster to run your ASP.NET sample application's pod on a node that can run Windows Server containers.

  1. Create a file named sample.yaml and paste in the following YAML definition.

    apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: sample
  labels:
    app: sample
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      name: sample
      labels:
        app: sample
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": windows
      containers:
      - name: sample
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/samples:aspnetapp
        resources:
          limits:
            cpu: 1
            memory: 800M
        ports:
          - containerPort: 80
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: sample
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: sample
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 80
  selector:
    app: sample

    For a breakdown of YAML manifest files, see Deployments and YAML manifests.

    If you create and save the YAML file locally, then you can upload the manifest file to your default directory in CloudShell by selecting the Upload/Download files button and selecting the file from your local file system.

  2. Deploy the application using the kubectl apply command and specify the name of your YAML manifest.

    kubectl apply -f sample.yaml

    The following sample output shows the deployment and service created successfully:

    deployment.apps/sample created
service/sample created

Test the application

When the application runs, a Kubernetes service exposes the application front end to the internet. This process can take a few minutes to complete. Occasionally, the service can take longer than a few minutes to provision. Allow up to 10 minutes for provisioning.

  1. Check the status of the deployed pods using the kubectl get pods command. Make all pods are Running before proceeding.

    kubectl get pods

  2. Monitor progress using the kubectl get service command with the --watch argument.

    kubectl get service sample --watch

    Initially, the output shows the EXTERNAL-IP for the sample service as pending:

    NAME               TYPE           CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
sample             LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   <pending>     80:30572/TCP   6s

    When the EXTERNAL-IP address changes from pending to an actual public IP address, use CTRL-C to stop the kubectl watch process. The following sample output shows a valid public IP address assigned to the service:

    sample  LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   52.179.23.131   80:30572/TCP   2m

  3. See the sample app in action by opening a web browser to the external IP address of your service.

    Screenshot of browsing to ASP.NET sample application.

Delete resources

If you don't plan on going through the AKS tutorial, you should delete your cluster to avoid incurring Azure charges.

  1. In the Azure portal, navigate to your resource group.

  2. Select Delete resource group.

  3. Enter the name of your resource group to confirm deletion and select Delete.

  4. In the Delete confirmation dialog box, select Delete.

    Note

    The AKS cluster was created with system-assigned managed identity (default identity option used in this quickstart), the identity is managed by the platform and does not require removal.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you deployed a Kubernetes cluster and then deployed an ASP.NET sample application in a Windows Server container to it. This sample application is for demo purposes only and doesn't represent all the best practices for Kubernetes applications. For guidance on creating full solutions with AKS for production, see AKS solution guidance.

To learn more about AKS, and to walk through a complete code-to-deployment example, continue to the Kubernetes cluster tutorial.

AKS tutorial