How To Use Azure Kubernetes Service For Container Orchestration ?

Azure Kubernetes Service provides a platform for managing containers with the help of Kubernetes. It also provides an easy and managed way for the deployment and scaling of containerized applications. Containerized applications are deployed in the Kubernetes cluster in Azure. Let's see how to use the Azure Kubernetes Service for deploying containerized applications.

Primary Terminologies

• Kubernetes: It is an open-source container orchestration platform designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
• Kubernetes Cluster: It is a set of nodes on which containerized applications run.
• Container orchestration is a term referring to the management and configuration of containers.

Using the Azure Kubernetes Service for container orchestration

Step 1:

• Before proceeding with the usage, first create a Kubernetes cluster in Azure.
• On the Azure portal, click on Cloud Shell.
• Run the below command to create a cluster. Specify your resource group and cluster name in the command.

• On successful running the command should show output as cluster details.
• We can also specify node count and other properties for cluster from command.
• Add credentials for connecting to Kubernetes cluster by running below command. Replace resource group and cluster name from previous command.

• To see whether the cluster is deployed successfully run below command. It should show running nodes in cluster.

As you can see cluster is deployed with single node successfully.

Step 2: Now go to cluster overview page to view cluster configuration. You should similar output as below.

Lets deploy one sample application on cluster.

• Go to cloud shell and run below command to get cluster credentials

az aks get-credentials --resource-group <your_resource_group_name> --name <your_aks_cluster_name>

• You can now use kubectl. We can verify it using running any kubectl command like below.

Step 3: Now lets deploy a simple NGINX server on kubernetes. Lets create a YAML file for the same. In cloud shell run below command

nano nginx-deployment.yaml

Add below lines to file when nano is opened.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: nginx
          image: nginx:latest
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80

press ctrl+o and ctrl+x to save and exit.

• Now lets apply the deployment by running below command.

kubectl apply -f nginx-deployment.yaml

• You can verify the deployment using below command

kubectl get deployment nginx-deployment --watch

Step 4:

• Lets expose the nginx on a service to access it externally.
• just like previos step create service.yaml file and below lines to it.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: gfgnginx-service
spec:
  selector:
    app: nginx
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80
  type: LoadBalancer

• apply the configuration using below command.

kubectl apply -f nginx-service.yaml

• check the deployment using below command.

kubectl get service gfgnginx-service --watch

• Copy the external id paste in browser to see deployed server.

Step 5: You can manage containers from console as follow.

• on console from cluster overview page go to node pools from left pane. Open node pool from list.
• From left pane click on nodes you can see running nodes in the cluster.

• Click on any node to see the pods. On this page from left pane click on pods. we can see number of listed pods along nginx-deployment pods.

• Click on any one of pod. Here you can see deployed container with its image name.
  

• You can also see other components and services in cluster using AKS and manage them.

Conclusion

Thus, we have seen Azure Kubernetes Service can be used for running and orchestrating containerized applications. It provides easy way to create and deploy containers. It also gives overview Kubernetes cluster which is very helpful in complex application architectures.