Deploying and Accessing an Application to an AKS Cluster

You should be familiar with the following to use this hands on lab:

• Docker and Containers
• Kubernetes Deployments, Pods and Services
• YAML
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Cloud Shell
• Azure Command Line Interface

To complete this lab you will need to use manifest files when creating the deployment and the service. Once you have accessed the lab environment add the deployment.yaml and service.yaml to your Azure Cloud Shell environment.

The files can found in the following location:

https://github.com/linuxacademy/content-aks-basics/tree/master/Lab-Deploying-and-accessing-an-application-to-an-AKS-cluster

If you will be using the Azure Cloud Shell you will need to configure the storage.

1. Open up the Azure Cloud Shell.
2. In the welcome screen, select either Bash or PowerShell.
3. Select "Show advanced settings".
4. Set the Cloud Shell region to the same location as the existing resource group
5. Under "Storage account" make sure "Create new" is selected.
6. Manually provide a unique name for the Storage account.
7. Under "File share" make sure "Create new" is selected.
8. Manually provide a unique name for the File share.
9. Select "Create storage".

Note about environment limitations:

Due to some limitations for the Cloud Playground/Hands On Lab environments there are some actions that are not permitted. One of them is that the user account does not have permission to create a new resource group. When creating an AKS cluster, Azure will create the AKS service in your existing resource group and then create another resource group to host all the other infrastructure needed for the cluster such as networking, storage and any log analytics workspaces.

How does this apply to our scenario?

• Deploying in the Azure Portal

  • An error will occur when trying to deploy an AKS resource in the Azure Portal and in the “Integrations” tab the “Container Monitoring” is set to enabled. If you disable that it should work.

• Deploying from Azure CLI

  • An error will occur when trying to deploy an AKS resource using the Azure CLI if you include the --enable-addons monitoring parameter. If you deploy the resource without that parameter (see guide for full command), it should work.

I understand that this is a bit confusing due to the unique limitations of the ACG environments so please feel free to reach out if you are experiencing problems or if you have any other questions.

Here is some more information about the environment limitations:

• Linux Academy
  • https://pinehead.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004687055-What-can-I-do-with-the-Azure-Sandbox-
• A Cloud Guru
  • https://help.acloud.guru/hc/en-us/articles/360001389296-Azure-Cloud-Sandbox

Additionally, here is some more information regarding the additional AKS resource group creation from the Microsoft documentation if you are interested:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/faq#why-are-two-resource-groups-created-with-aks