When to Use Azure Kubernetes Services?

Many tech-savvy entrepreneurs, small and medium businesses, and large enterprises are using Kubernetes for managing their containerized workloads and services. Managing containerized applications requires orchestration expertise, along with the necessity to maintain and manage ongoing operations such as provisioning, upgrading, and scaling of resources when required.

A significant proportion of these users have deployed their workloads on public cloud services. While there are several methods for containerizing applications, Microsoft has a fully managed solution to deploy, manage, and scale Kubernetes clusters. In this article, let us explore when to Use Azure Kubernetes Services and some of its features and benefits.

What Are the Advantages of Using Azure Kubernetes Service?

Azure Kubernetes Service is an efficient solution for unifying development and operations processes and rapidly building, delivering, and scaling applications with enterprise-grade security and governance. Below are some of the other advantages of using Azure Kubernetes Services.

• Optimize resource utilization for elastic provisioning of resources for containerized applications.
• Accelerate application development by reducing overheads such as upgrades, patching, and bug-fixing.
• Take advantage of advanced identity and access management features in Azure Active Directory and use Azure Policy for dynamically enforcing rules across multiple Kubernetes clusters.
• It is effective in orchestrating different types of workloads to Windows Server containers, Linux containers, or even run them as microservices in public clouds, hybrid environments, or at the edge.

What Are the Features of Azure Kubernetes Services?

Azure Kubernetes Services offers several simple methods for deploying Kubernetes clusters, configuring their nodes, and monitoring the health of the services. Here are some of the most important features of Azure Kubernetes Services.

• It automates many processes, such as configuring Kubernetes masters and nodes during the deployment process.
• Security can be enhanced with Role-based access control (RBAC) using Azure Active Directory (AD).
• Development tools such as Helm and Draft can be used in combination with Azure Dev Spaces/ Bridge to Kubernetes for iterative development.
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) node auto-repair uses detects unhealthy nodes and automatically takes remedial action to minimize cluster service disruptions.

When Is Azure Kubernetes Service Useful?

Here are some ideal use cases for Azure Kubernetes Services.

• Modernizing existing applications and containerizing them in the cloud.
• Simplifying configuration and management of microservices-based applications, and streamlining backend processes such as load balancing, scaling, and patching.
• Channelize continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to deliver code changes with greater frequency and efficiency to improve overall DevOps practice.
• Enhance scalability by eliminating the need for additional servers using AKS virtual nodes for provisioning pods in Azure Container Instance (ACI).
• Develop pipelines to ingest and process large volumes of Internet of Things (IoT) data and generate insights and recommendations in real-time.

Apps4Rent Can Help with Azure Kubernetes Services Deployments

Azure Kubernetes Services is rarely used in isolation and is generally a part of implementations with complex architectures that involve the integration of several other Azure services such as Azure Pipelines, Azure Database, and Azure Container Registry.

As a Tier 1 Microsoft CSP with Gold Competency in Cloud Platform and Cloud Productivity, Apps4Rent offers managed Azure services for design, delivery, and daily operational support for deployment and management of computing, storage, and virtual network infrastructure on Azure. Contact our Azure cloud experts, available 24/7 via phone, chat, and email for managed Azure Kubernetes Services.