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Quickstart: Deploy an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster using PowerShell

  • Article
  • 6 minutes to read

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 PowerShell.
  • 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 running PowerShell locally, install the Az PowerShell module and connect to your Azure account using the Connect-AzAccount cmdlet. For more information about installing the Az PowerShell module, see Install Azure PowerShell.

  • The identity you are 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).

  • If you have multiple Azure subscriptions, select the appropriate subscription ID in which the resources should be billed using the Set-AzContext cmdlet.

    Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Azure Cloud Shell

Azure hosts Azure Cloud Shell, an interactive shell environment that you can use through your browser. You can use either Bash or PowerShell with Cloud Shell to work with Azure services. You can use the Cloud Shell preinstalled commands to run the code in this article, without having to install anything on your local environment.

To start Azure Cloud Shell:

Option Example/Link
Select Try It in the upper-right corner of a code or command block. Selecting Try It doesn't automatically copy the code or command to Cloud Shell. Screenshot that shows an example of Try It for Azure Cloud Shell.
Go to https://shell.azure.com, or select the Launch Cloud Shell button to open Cloud Shell in your browser. Screenshot that shows how to launch Cloud Shell in a new window.
Select the Cloud Shell button on the menu bar at the upper right in the Azure portal. Screenshot that shows the Cloud Shell button in the Azure portal

To use Azure Cloud Shell:

  1. Start Cloud Shell.

  2. Select the Copy button on a code block (or command block) to copy the code or command.

  3. Paste the code or command into the Cloud Shell session by selecting Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows and Linux, or by selecting Cmd+Shift+V on macOS.

  4. Select Enter to run the code or command.

Create a resource group

An Azure resource group is a logical group in which Azure resources are deployed and managed. When you create a resource group, you will be prompted to specify a location. This location is:

  • The storage location of your resource group metadata.
  • Where your resources will run in Azure if you don't specify another region during resource creation.

The following example creates a resource group named myResourceGroup in the eastus region.

Create a resource group using the New-AzResourceGroup cmdlet.

New-AzResourceGroup -Name myResourceGroup -Location eastus

The following output example resembles successful creation of the resource group:

ResourceGroupName : myResourceGroup
Location          : eastus
ProvisioningState : Succeeded
Tags              :
ResourceId        : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup

Create AKS cluster

Create an AKS cluster using the New-AzAksCluster cmdlet with the -WorkspaceResourceId parameter to enable Azure Monitor container insights.

  1. Create an AKS cluster named myAKSCluster with one node.

    New-AzAksCluster -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Name myAKSCluster -NodeCount 1 -GenerateSshKey -WorkspaceResourceId <WORKSPACE_RESOURCE_ID>

After a few minutes, the command completes and returns information about the cluster.

Note

When you create an AKS cluster, a second resource group is automatically created to store the AKS resources. For more information, see Why are two resource groups created with AKS?

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.

  1. Install kubectl locally using the Install-AzAksKubectl cmdlet:

    Install-AzAksKubectl

  2. Configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster using the Import-AzAksCredential cmdlet. The following cmdlet downloads credentials and configures the Kubernetes CLI to use them.

    Import-AzAksCredential -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Name myAKSCluster

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

    kubectl get nodes

    The following output example shows the single node created in the previous steps. Make sure the node status is Ready:

    NAME                       STATUS   ROLES   AGE     VERSION
aks-nodepool1-31718369-0   Ready    agent   6m44s   v1.15.10

Deploy the application

A Kubernetes manifest file defines a cluster's desired state, such as 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.

  1. Create a file named azure-vote.yaml.

    • If you use the Azure Cloud Shell, this file can be created using code, vi, or nano as if working on a virtual or physical system

  2. Copy 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.

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

    kubectl apply -f azure-vote.yaml

    The following example resembles output showing the successfully created deployments and services:

    deployment.apps/azure-vote-back created
service/azure-vote-back created
deployment.apps/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.

Monitor progress using 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 the cluster

To avoid Azure charges, if you don't plan on going through the tutorials that follow, clean up your unnecessary resources. Use the Remove-AzResourceGroup cmdlet to remove the resource group, container service, and all related resources.

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name myResourceGroup

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 a sample multi-container application to it.

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

AKS tutorial