Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Highly available, secure, and fully managed Kubernetes service
Ship faster, operate with ease, and scale confidently
Deploy and manage containerized applications more easily with a fully managed Kubernetes service. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers serverless Kubernetes, an integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) experience, and enterprise-grade security and governance. Unite your development and operations teams on a single platform to rapidly build, deliver, and scale applications with confidence.
Elastic provisioning of capacity without the need to manage the infrastructure, and with the ability to add event-driven autoscaling and triggers through KEDA
Faster end-to-end development experience through Visual Studio Code Kubernetes tools, Azure DevOps, and Azure Monitor
Most comprehensive authentication and authorization capabilities using Azure Active Directory, and dynamic rules enforcement across multiple clusters with Azure Policy
Available in more regions than any other cloud provider
Accelerate containerized application development
Easily define, deploy, debug, and upgrade even the most complex Kubernetes applications, and automatically containerize your applications. Use modern application development to accelerate time to market.
Add a full CI/CD pipeline to your AKS clusters with automated routine tasks, and set up a canary deployment strategy in just a few clicks. Detect failures early and optimize your pipelines with deep traceability into your deployments.
Gain visibility into your environment with the Kubernetes resources view, control-plane telemetry, log aggregation, and container health, accessible in the Azure portal and automatically configured for AKS clusters.
Review DevOps fundamentalsIncreased operational efficiency
Rely on built-in automated provisioning, repair, monitoring, and scaling. Get up and running quickly and minimize infrastructure maintenance.
- Easily provision fully managed clusters with Prometheus based monitoring capabilities.
- Use Azure Advisor to optimize your Kubernetes deployments with real-time, personalized recommendations.
- Save on costs by using deeply discounted capacity with Azure Spot.
- Elastically add compute capacity with serverless Kubernetes, in seconds.
- Achieve higher availability and protect applications from datacenter failures using availability zones.
Build on an enterprise-grade, more secure foundation
Dynamically enforce guardrails defined in Azure Policy at the time of deployment or as part of CI/CD workflows. Deploy only validated images to your private container registry.
Learn more about Azure PolicyGet fine-grained identity and access control to Kubernetes resources, from cluster to containers, using Azure Active Directory.
Enforce pod security context and configure across multiple clusters with Azure Policy. Track, validate, and reconfigure easily. Get compliance reports for the entire environment with pod-level granularity.
Learn more about Azure PolicyAchieve superior security with a hardened operating system image, automated patching, and disks encrypted using your own keys. Automate threat detection and remediation using advanced analytics from Azure Security Center.
Learn more about Security CenterUse Azure Private Link to limit Kubernetes API server (control plane) access to your Azure virtual network. Help secure communication paths between namespaces and nodes with user-defined network policy.
Get an additional layer of data protection for your Kubernetes workloads with confidential containers. Protect data-in-use, code and data integrity of the container applications, a great addition to your defense-in-depth container strategy. Perform mission critical payment processing, secure multi-party sharing, key generation and crypto modules in secure enclaves, and more.
Learn more about confidential computing nodes on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Run any workload in the cloud, at the edge, or as a hybrid
Orchestrate any type of workload running in the environment of your choice. Whether you want to move .NET applications to Windows Server containers, modernize Java applications in Linux containers, or run microservices applications in the public cloud, at the edge, or in hybrid environments, Azure has the solution for you.
Learn about the Kubernetes core concepts and apply best practices in production.
Common uses for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Migrate your existing application to the cloud, build a complex application that uses machine learning, or take advantage of the agility offered by a microservices architecture.
Lift and shift to containers with AKS
Easily migrate existing application to container(s) and run within the Azure managed Kubernetes service (AKS).
Microservices with AKS
Use AKS to simplify the deployment and management of microservices based architecture. AKS streamlines horizontal scaling, self-healing, load balancing, secret management.
Secure DevOps for AKS
DevOps and Kubernetes are better together. Implementing secure DevOps together with Kubernetes on Azure, you can achieve the balance between speed and security and deliver code faster at scale.
Bursting from AKS with ACI
Use the AKS virtual node to provision pods inside ACI that start in seconds. This enables AKS to run with just enough capacity for your average workload.
Azure IoT reference architecture
This reference architecture shows a recommended architecture for IoT applications on Azure using PaaS (platform-as-a-service) components.
Machine Learning model training with AKS
Training of models using large datasets is a complex and resource intensive task. Use familiar tools such as TensorFlow and Kubeflow to simplify training of Machine Learning models.
Data Streaming scenario
Use AKS to easily ingest & process a real-time data stream with millions of data points collected via sensors. Perform fast analysis and computations to develop insights into complex scenarios quickly.
Use AKS and pay only for compute resources
- Pay only for the virtual machines and the associated storage and networking resources consumed
- Take advantage of no-charge cluster management
How customers are using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Hafslund uses containerized software for utility initiatives and to improve customer service
Ståle Heitmann, Chief Technology Officer, Hafslund Nett"We wanted a platform to speed development and testing but do it safely, without losing control over security and performance. That's why Azure and AKS are the perfect fit for us."
Maersk uses the cloud to spur development of containerized solutions built on Kubernetes
Rasmus Hald, Head of Cloud Architecture, A.P. Moller - Maersk"Using Kubernetes on Azure satisfies our objectives for efficient software development. It aligns well with our digital plans and our choice of open-source solutions."
Siemens Healthineers moves more computing to the cloud to support value-based care development
Thomas Gossler, Lead Architect, Digital Ecosystem Platform, Siemens Healthineers"Using AKS puts us into a position to not only deploy our business logic in Docker containers, including the orchestration, but also … to easily manage the exposure and control."
Finastra chooses AKS for its next-generation financial technology development ecosystem
Félix Grévy, Global Head of Product Management, Finastra"AKS gives us a pure Kubernetes and Docker imaging environment that we don't have to manage ourselves. Our team has regained the resources to accelerate deployment and maximize our PaaS offering."
Bosch increases vehicle safety using map-matching algorithms and Azure Kubernetes Service
Bernhard Rode, Software Engineer, Bosch"When we started our journey on Azure, we were a really small team—just one or two developers. Our partnership with Microsoft, the support from their advisory teams, the great AKS documentation and enterprise expertise—it all helped us very much to succeed."
Get started with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Sign up for an Azure free account.
Explore the core Kubernetes infrastructure components and workload resources.
Follow the seven-part tutorial to deploy and run an application in AKS.
Training materials and resources
What is Kubernetes?
Get an overview of Kubernetes and related resources, including a Kubernetes learning path designed to facilitate your journey to Kubernetes proficiency. Learn from experts through e-books, videos, short tutorials, and in-depth, hands-on workshops.
Documentation and quickstarts
Check out the documentation for quickstarts, tutorials, and how-to guides. Read AKS best practices to better understand the technical details, get hands-on with AKS, and learn about the options for setting up Kubernetes in production.
Videos and webinars
Watch AKS videos and on-demand Azure webinars for demos, top features, and technical sessions.
Azure Blog and updates
Read the Blog and subscribe to updates for the latest news and information on Azure products.
Forums and events
Deepen your expertise by joining other AKS users on GitHub, at KubeCon, or at a Kubernetes Meetup near you.
E-books
Get recommendations for networking, security, identity, management, and monitoring of the cluster based on your organization’s business requirements.Expert guidance
Join AKS office hours for expert guidance, new feature showcase, future roadmap discussion, and a Q&A; session.
AKS updates, blogs, and announcements
Frequently asked questions about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
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AKS is available in more than 42 regions worldwide, and new ones are being added regularly.
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Kubernetes is open-source software that helps deploy and manage containerized applications at scale. It orchestrates a cluster of Azure virtual machines, schedules containers, automatically manages service discovery, incorporates load balancing, and tracks resource allocation. It also checks the health of individual resources and heals apps with auto-restart and auto-replication.
AKS provides a managed Kubernetes service with automated provisioning, upgrading, monitoring, and on-demand scaling. To learn more, visit the Kubernetes website and the topic page.
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Docker and Kubernetes are complementary. Docker provides an open standard for packaging and distributing containerized applications, while Kubernetes provides for the orchestration and management of distributed, containerized applications created with Docker. In other words, Kubernetes provides the infrastructure needed to deploy and run applications built with Docker.