Industry Use Cases for Kubernetes / Openshift from Experts

1st March 2021

14 min readMar 2, 2021

Hello Everyone..!

Today we had a great session with the industry experts:

Amil Methai , Daleep Singh Bais & Abid Mattoo.

We had this session for knowing how the Azure Kubernetes Service work in industry and learn from the people who are in the industry.

Lets see what we have learned.

Kubernetes:

Kubernetes is a portable, extensible, open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services, that facilitates both declarative configuration and automation. It has a large, rapidly growing ecosystem. Kubernetes services, support, and tools are widely available.

Kubernetes automates operational tasks of container management and includes built-in commands for deploying applications, rolling out changes to your applications, scaling your applications up and down to fit changing needs, monitoring your applications, and more — making it easier to manage applications.“Kubernetes, or k8s, is an open source platform that automates Linux container operations. … “In other words, you can cluster together groups of hosts running Linux containers, and Kubernetes helps you easily and efficiently manage those clusters.”

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) :

Microsoft Azure is a world-renown cloud platform for SMBs to large scale business, while Kubernetes is a modern-day approach that is rapidly becoming the regular methodology to manage cloud-native applications in a production environment. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has brought both solutions together that allow customers to create fully-managed Kubernetes clusters quickly and easily. AKS is an open-source fully managed container orchestration service that became available in June 2018 and is available on the Microsoft Azure public cloud that can be used to deploy, scale and manage Docker containers and container-based applications in a cluster environment.

Azure Kubernetes Service offers provisioning, scaling, and upgrades of resources as per requirement or demand without any downtime in the Kubernetes cluster and the best thing about AKS is that you don’t require deep knowledge and expertise in container orchestration to manage AKS. AKS is certainly an ideal platform for developers to develop their modern applications using Kubernetes on the Azure architecture where Azure Container Instances are the pretty right choice to deploy containers on the public cloud. The Azure Container Instances help in reducing the stress on developers to deploy and run their applications on Kubernetes architecture.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed container platform that simplifies the process of deploying your containerized applications. AKS will give your organization the following advantages:

Production-ready Kubernetes platform
Reduced IT and management overhead
Automated deployments with Helm
CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps
Integrations with Azure SaaS products
Secure image storage with Azure Container Registry
Full cloud, edge, and hybrid solutions

Features of AKS

Azure Kubernetes Service tutorial will inform you of the simplicity of deploying managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure using AKS. Microsoft Azure can deal with important tasks such as maintenance and health monitoring because it is a hosted Kubernetes service. Azure manages the Kubernetes nodes, and users could manage and maintain the agent nodes. Users could create an AKS cluster in the Azure portal or with Azure CLI.

You could also choose template-based deployment options such as Terraform and Resource Manager templates. Upon deployment of an AKS cluster, you find the automatic configuration of the Kubernetes master and all nodes. You could also configure the additional features such as Azure Active Directory integration, monitoring, and advanced networking. Quite some amazing functionalities, aren’t they? So, let us take a deeper look into the features that you get with Azure Kubernetes Service.

Security, Access, and Monitoring

Common Azure Kubernetes Service documentation can shed light on the improvements in areas of access, security, and monitoring. AKS helps in integration with Azure Active Directory and using Kubernetes role-based access controls. Also, you could monitor the status of your cluster and resources.

RBAC helps in controlling access to Kubernetes resources and namespaces as well as permission to resources. Azure AD integration helps in configuration of Kubernetes access based on existing identity and group membership. Azure Monitor can help in observing the performance of your AKS Azure cluster and deployed applications.

Clusters and Nodes

Azure Kubernetes Service tutorial also include elaborations on the feature of clusters and nodes in AKS. AKS nodes run on Azure Virtual Machines, and AKS provides support for Kubernetes clusters running multiple node pools. With the changes in demand for resources, the number of cluster nodes or pods running services can be scaled accordingly.

AKS also provides different Kubernetes versions and the cluster upgrades through the Azure Portal or CLI. You could also find support for creating GPU enabled node pools. Also, you have the privilege of mounting storage volumes for persistent data. You can use static and dynamic volumes according to your preference. The two options for storage volume support with Azure Kubernetes Service include Azure Disks and Azure Files.

Virtual Networks and Ingress

Azure Kubernetes Service documentation will also include virtual networks and ingress. You can deploy an AKS cluster into an existing virtual network. Every pod in the cluster is attached with an IP address in the virtual network. The pods can communicate with other pods in the cluster as well as other nodes in the virtual network. The add-on of HTTP application routing can help in having flexible access to applications deployed on an AKS cluster. HTTP application routing solution can help in configuration of an ingress controller in an AKS cluster.

Development Tooling Integration

The next important concern in Azure Kubernetes Service is Development tooling integration. You can find a wide ecosystem having development and management tools such as Draft and Helm. The seamless functioning of these tools with AKS is a prolific reason to consider using AKS. Most important of all, the Azure Dev Spaces can give a faster, iterative Kubernetes development experience. You could run and debug containers directly in AKS with the least stress on the configuration.

Azure Kubernetes Service also provides support for Docker image format. Furthermore, you could also integrate AKS with Azure Container Registry (ACR) for the private storage of Docker images. Also, AKS establishes credibility through the CNCF certification of “Kubernetes conformant.” The regulatory compliance of AKS with SOC, HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS make it reliable for application across diverse industries.

At a high level the following components are required for a Kubernetes cluster:

Kube-controller manager
Cloud-controller manager
Kube API server
Etcd
Kube-scheduler
Kubernetes nodes (including kube-proxy and kubelet)

With AKS, Microsoft have assumed the day-to-day responsibilities of Kubernetes, removing a lot of the previous management pain, allowing customers to just look after the most important parts of their business. This leaves customers only needing to managing the following:

Virtual nodes : These are virtual machines that run within your Kubernetes cluster to host the containers/pods.
Containers/Pods : These run on the nodes within your cluster. These are running your applications that are containerised.
Container Images : These are your applications that have been containerised to work within containers.

Azure Kubernetes Service Benefits

Azure Kubernetes Service is currently competing with both Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). It offers numerous features such as creating, managing, scaling, and monitoring Azure Kubernetes Clusters, which is attractive for users of Microsoft Azure. The following are some benefits offered by AKS:

Efficient resource utilization : The fully managed AKS offers easy deployment and management of containerized applications with efficient resource utilization that elastically provisions additional resources without the headache of managing the Kubernetes infrastructure.
Faster application development : Developers spent most of the time on bug-fixing. AKS reduces the debugging time while handling patching, auto-upgrades, and self-healing and simplifies the container orchestration. It definitely saves a lot of time and developers will focus on developing their apps while remaining more productive.
Security and compliance : Cybersecurity is one of the most important aspects of modern applications and businesses. AKS integrates with Azure Active Directory (AD) and offers on-demand access to the users to greatly reduce threats and risks. AKS is also completely compliant with the standards and regulatory requirements such as System and Organization Controls (SOC), HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS.
Quicker development and integration : Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) supports auto-upgrades, monitoring, and scaling and helps in minimizing the infrastructure maintenance that leads to comparatively faster development and integration. It also supports provisioning additional compute resources in Serverless Kubernetes within seconds without worrying about managing the Kubernetes infrastructure.
Cost : Only pay for what you require. Maybe you have certain parts of the month where the demand for your application is higher — let Microsoft autoscaling do the work to ensure you are only using the resources that your application needs.
Isolation : Applications running containers in AKS can be completely isolated from each other, unless of course you need them to communicate with each other.
Flexibility : You can run your applications on Linux, Windows, or both!
Less patching : With less virtual machines, comes less maintenance. Allow your engineers to be creative in other areas that will increase the benefits to your business.
Zero downtime upgrades : Rolling upgrades to your applications happen seamlessly with no down time. When you upgrade your application image and push to a container registry, AKS will deploy your application next to your current application. When AKS decides your containers are healthy, it will softly shut down your old version of the container and users will use the newly patched application. No more rebooting virtual machines after upgrades!
Support for Microservices : Microservices are a great candidate for containers and AKS. Run each one of your services in a different pod. This will allow you to patch each service at a time as opposed to taking down the whole application. If you need to connect to a database such as SQL, you can integrate AKS with Azure SQL PaaS services, or choose to run your database in your AKS cluster — the choice is yours.

Use Cases of Azure Kubernetes Services :

Now, let us take a look at the different uses of Azure Kubernetes Service for improving this discussion further.

AKS is ideal for easy migration of the existing application to containers and running them. The access control comes through integration with Azure Active Directory. You can also access SLA-backed Azure Services such as Azure Database using OSBA (Open Service Broker for Azure).
AKS is also ideal for simplifying the deployment and management of applications based on microservices. The streamlined horizontal scaling, secret management, self-healing, and load balancing by AKS provide the necessary support.
AKS is also a reliable instrument for bringing DevOps and Kubernetes together. AKS is ideal for secure DevOps implementation with Kubernetes and improves the speed and security of the development process. The development processes are secure with the use of CI/CD supported by dynamic policy controls.
Constant monitoring can also help in accelerating the feedback loop. Azure pipelines can help in faster delivery alongside compliance with critical policies specified by Azure. Microsoft Azure also gives features for observing the build and release pipelines in real-time and features for easy application of compliance audit and reconfigurations.
Azure Kubernetes Service is also applicable in many other use cases. One of them is the ease of scaling by using AKS and Azure Container Instances. Also, you can find the applications of AKS for on-demand IoT device deployment and management. AKS can provide scalable compute resources for IoT solutions according to demand. AKS could also find applications in use cases that involve machine learning model training. Flexible tools in AKS such as Kubeflow and TensorFlow help in simplifying the training of machine learning models.
Migration of existing applications : You can easily migrate existing apps to containers and run them with Azure Kubernetes Service. You can also control access via Azure AD integration and SLA-based Azure Services like Azure Database using Open Service Broker for Azure (OSBA).
Simplifying the configuration and management of microservices-based Apps : You can also simplify the development and management of microservices-based apps as well as streamline load balancing, horizontal scaling, self-healing, and secret management with AKS.
Bringing DevOps and Kubernetes together : AKS is also a reliable resource to bring Kubernetes and DevOps together for securing DevOps implementation with Kubernetes. Bringing both together, it improves the security and speed of the development process with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) with dynamic policy controls.
Ease of scaling : AKS can also be applied in many other use cases such as ease of scaling by using Azure Container Instances (ACI) and AKS. By doing this, you can use AKS virtual node to provision pods inside Azure Container Instance (ACI) that start within a few seconds and enables AKS to run with required resources. If your AKS cluster is run out of resources, if will scale-out additional pods automatically without any additional servers to manage in the Kubernetes environment.
Data streaming : AKS can also be used to ingest and process real-time data streams with data points via sensors and perform quick analysis.

It was something more long and brief which I could put here.

Do learn new things and my session today with experts was again an outstanding experience for me. Great to be a part of ARTH.

Virtual nodes : These are virtual machines that run within your Kubernetes cluster to host the containers/pods.
Containers/Pods : These run on the nodes within your cluster. These are running your applications that are containerised.
Container Images : These are your applications that have been containerised to work within containers.

Azure Kubernetes Service Benefits

Efficient resource utilization : The fully managed AKS offers easy deployment and management of containerized applications with efficient resource utilization that elastically provisions additional resources without the headache of managing the Kubernetes infrastructure.
Faster application development : Developers spent most of the time on bug-fixing. AKS reduces the debugging time while handling patching, auto-upgrades, and self-healing and simplifies the container orchestration. It definitely saves a lot of time and developers will focus on developing their apps while remaining more productive.
Security and compliance : Cybersecurity is one of the most important aspects of modern applications and businesses. AKS integrates with Azure Active Directory (AD) and offers on-demand access to the users to greatly reduce threats and risks. AKS is also completely compliant with the standards and regulatory requirements such as System and Organization Controls (SOC), HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS.
Quicker development and integration : Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) supports auto-upgrades, monitoring, and scaling and helps in minimizing the infrastructure maintenance that leads to comparatively faster development and integration. It also supports provisioning additional compute resources in Serverless Kubernetes within seconds without worrying about managing the Kubernetes infrastructure.
Cost : Only pay for what you require. Maybe you have certain parts of the month where the demand for your application is higher — let Microsoft autoscaling do the work to ensure you are only using the resources that your application needs.
Isolation : Applications running containers in AKS can be completely isolated from each other, unless of course you need them to communicate with each other.
Flexibility : You can run your applications on Linux, Windows, or both!
Less patching : With less virtual machines, comes less maintenance. Allow your engineers to be creative in other areas that will increase the benefits to your business.
Zero downtime upgrades : Rolling upgrades to your applications happen seamlessly with no down time. When you upgrade your application image and push to a container registry, AKS will deploy your application next to your current application. When AKS decides your containers are healthy, it will softly shut down your old version of the container and users will use the newly patched application. No more rebooting virtual machines after upgrades!
Support for Microservices : Microservices are a great candidate for containers and AKS. Run each one of your services in a different pod. This will allow you to patch each service at a time as opposed to taking down the whole application. If you need to connect to a database such as SQL, you can integrate AKS with Azure SQL PaaS services, or choose to run your database in your AKS cluster — the choice is yours.

Use Cases of Azure Kubernetes Services :

Now, let us take a look at the different uses of Azure Kubernetes Service for improving this discussion further.

AKS is ideal for easy migration of the existing application to containers and running them. The access control comes through integration with Azure Active Directory. You can also access SLA-backed Azure Services such as Azure Database using OSBA (Open Service Broker for Azure).
AKS is also ideal for simplifying the deployment and management of applications based on microservices. The streamlined horizontal scaling, secret management, self-healing, and load balancing by AKS provide the necessary support.
AKS is also a reliable instrument for bringing DevOps and Kubernetes together. AKS is ideal for secure DevOps implementation with Kubernetes and improves the speed and security of the development process. The development processes are secure with the use of CI/CD supported by dynamic policy controls.
Constant monitoring can also help in accelerating the feedback loop. Azure pipelines can help in faster delivery alongside compliance with critical policies specified by Azure. Microsoft Azure also gives features for observing the build and release pipelines in real-time and features for easy application of compliance audit and reconfigurations.
Azure Kubernetes Service is also applicable in many other use cases. One of them is the ease of scaling by using AKS and Azure Container Instances. Also, you can find the applications of AKS for on-demand IoT device deployment and management. AKS can provide scalable compute resources for IoT solutions according to demand. AKS could also find applications in use cases that involve machine learning model training. Flexible tools in AKS such as Kubeflow and TensorFlow help in simplifying the training of machine learning models.
Migration of existing applications : You can easily migrate existing apps to containers and run them with Azure Kubernetes Service. You can also control access via Azure AD integration and SLA-based Azure Services like Azure Database using Open Service Broker for Azure (OSBA).
Simplifying the configuration and management of microservices-based Apps : You can also simplify the development and management of microservices-based apps as well as streamline load balancing, horizontal scaling, self-healing, and secret management with AKS.
Bringing DevOps and Kubernetes together : AKS is also a reliable resource to bring Kubernetes and DevOps together for securing DevOps implementation with Kubernetes. Bringing both together, it improves the security and speed of the development process with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) with dynamic policy controls.
Ease of scaling : AKS can also be applied in many other use cases such as ease of scaling by using Azure Container Instances (ACI) and AKS. By doing this, you can use AKS virtual node to provision pods inside Azure Container Instance (ACI) that start within a few seconds and enables AKS to run with required resources. If your AKS cluster is run out of resources, if will scale-out additional pods automatically without any additional servers to manage in the Kubernetes environment.
Data streaming : AKS can also be used to ingest and process real-time data streams with data points via sensors and perform quick analysis.

It was great to be a part of the session and here I end to show and brief about kubernetes.

I had a great session with the experts and knowing more about the use in industry.

Great to be a part of ARTH.

Thank You

#RedHat #vimaldaga #righteducation #educationredefine #rightmentor #linuxworld #makingindiafutureready #righeducation #arthbylw #containersbylw #kubernetes #openshift #expertsession #amel #daleep