Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster using the Azure portal

Article
03/30/2023

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes service that lets you quickly deploy and manage clusters. In this quickstart, you will:

Deploy an AKS cluster using the Azure portal.
Run a sample multi-container application with a web front-end and a Redis instance in the cluster.

Screenshot of browsing to Azure Vote sample application.

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

Prerequisites

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

If you're unfamiliar with the Azure Cloud Shell, review Overview of Azure Cloud Shell.
The identity you're using to create your cluster has the appropriate minimum permissions. For more details on access and identity for AKS, see Access and identity options for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

Create an AKS cluster

Sign in to the Azure portal.
On the Azure portal menu or from the Home page, select Create a resource.
Select Containers > Kubernetes Service.
On the Basics page, configure the following options:
- Project details:
  - Select an Azure Subscription.
  - Select or create an Azure Resource group, such as myResourceGroup.
- Cluster details:
  - Ensure the Preset configuration is Standard ($$). For more details on preset configurations, see Cluster configuration presets in the Azure portal.
  - Enter a Kubernetes cluster name, such as myAKSCluster.
  - Select a Region for the AKS cluster, and leave the default value selected for Kubernetes version.
  - Select 99.5% for API server availability.
- Primary node pool:
  - Leave the default values selected.
Note

You can change the preset configuration when creating your cluster by selecting Learn more and compare presets and choosing a different option.
Select Next: Node pools when complete.
Keep the default Node pools options. At the bottom of the screen, click Next: Access.
On the Access page, configure the following options:
- The default value for Resource identity is System-assigned managed identity. Managed identities provide an identity for applications to use when connecting to resources that support Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication. For more details about managed identities, see What are managed identities for Azure resources?.
- The Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) option is the default value to provide more fine-grained control over access to the Kubernetes resources deployed in your AKS cluster.
By default, Basic networking is used, and Container insights is enabled.
Select Next: Networking when complete.
Keep the default Networking options. At the bottom of the screen, click Next: Integrations.
On the Integrations page, if you want to enable the recommended out-of-the-box alerts for AKS clusters, select Enable recommended alert rules. You can see the list of alerts that are automatically enabled if you select this option.
Click Review + create. When you navigate to the Review + create tab, Azure runs validation on the settings that you have chosen. If validation passes, you can proceed to create the AKS cluster by selecting Create. If validation fails, then it indicates which settings need to be modified.
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

To manage a Kubernetes cluster, use the Kubernetes command-line client, kubectl. kubectl is already installed if you use Azure Cloud Shell. If you're unfamiliar with the Cloud Shell, review Overview of Azure Cloud Shell.

Open Cloud Shell using the >_ button on the top of the Azure portal.
Note

To perform these operations in a local shell installation:
1. Verify Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell is installed.
2. Connect to Azure via the az login or Connect-AzAccount command.

Azure CLI
Azure PowerShell

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
```

Configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster using the Import-AzAksCredential cmdlet. The following command downloads credentials and configures the Kubernetes CLI to use them.
```
Import-AzAksCredential -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Name myAKSCluster
```

Verify the connection to your cluster using kubectl get to return a list of the cluster nodes.

kubectl get nodes

Output shows the single node created in the previous steps. Make sure the node status is Ready:

NAME                                STATUS   ROLES   AGE   VERSION
aks-agentpool-12345678-vmss000000   Ready    agent   23m   v1.19.11
aks-agentpool-12345678-vmss000001   Ready    agent   24m   v1.19.11

Deploy the application

A Kubernetes manifest file defines a cluster's desired state, like which container images to run.

In this quickstart, you will use a manifest to create all objects needed to run the Azure Vote application. This manifest includes two Kubernetes deployments:

The sample Azure Vote Python applications.
A Redis instance.

Two Kubernetes Services are also created:

An internal service for the Redis instance.
An external service to access the Azure Vote application from the internet.

In the Cloud Shell, open an editor and create a file named azure-vote.yaml.

Paste in the following YAML definition:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-back
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: azure-vote-back
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: azure-vote-back
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": linux
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-back
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/bitnami/redis:6.0.8
        env:
        - name: ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD
          value: "yes"
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 128Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 256Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 6379
          name: redis
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-back
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 6379
  selector:
    app: azure-vote-back
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-front
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: azure-vote-front
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: azure-vote-front
    spec:
      nodeSelector:
        "kubernetes.io/os": linux
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-front
        image: mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/azure-vote-front:v1
        resources:
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 128Mi
          limits:
            cpu: 250m
            memory: 256Mi
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
        env:
        - name: REDIS
          value: "azure-vote-back"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: azure-vote-front
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
  - port: 80
  selector:
    app: azure-vote-front

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

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

kubectl apply -f azure-vote.yaml

Output shows the successfully created deployments and services:

deployment "azure-vote-back" created
service "azure-vote-back" created
deployment "azure-vote-front" created
service "azure-vote-front" 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.

To monitor progress, use the kubectl get service command with the --watch argument.

kubectl get service azure-vote-front --watch

The EXTERNAL-IP output for the azure-vote-front service will initially show as pending.

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

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

azure-vote-front   LoadBalancer   10.0.37.27   52.179.23.131   80:30572/TCP   2m

To see the Azure Vote app in action, open a web browser to the external IP address of your service.

Screenshot of browsing to Azure Vote sample application.

Delete cluster

To avoid Azure charges, if you don't plan on going through the tutorials that follow, clean up your unnecessary resources. Select the Delete button on the AKS cluster dashboard. You can also use the az group delete command or the Remove-AzResourceGroup cmdlet to remove the resource group, container service, and all related resources.

Azure CLI
Azure PowerShell

az group delete --name myResourceGroup --yes --no-wait

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name myResourceGroup

Note

The AKS cluster was created with a system-assigned managed identity. This identity is managed by the platform and doesn't require removal.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you deployed a Kubernetes cluster and then deployed a sample multi-container application to it.

To learn more about AKS by walking through a complete example, including building an application, deploying from Azure Container Registry, updating a running application, and scaling and upgrading your cluster, continue to the Kubernetes cluster tutorial.

AKS tutorial