Create and Manage an AKS Kubernetes Cluster

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Provision a fully managed Kubernetes cluster on Azure Kubernetes Service, connect kubectl, and deploy a workload.

Prerequisites

-Azure CLI installed
-Active Azure subscription
-kubectl installed
-Basic Kubernetes knowledge

Steps

Create a resource group

Create a dedicated resource group for the AKS cluster.

$ az group create --name aks-rg --location eastus

Create the AKS cluster

Provisions a two-node cluster with managed identity authentication.

$ az aks create --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks --node-count 2 --node-vm-size Standard_B2s --generate-ssh-keys --enable-managed-identity

Standard_B2s is cost-effective for dev/test. Use Standard_D4s_v5 or larger for production.

Cluster creation takes 5-10 minutes. Do not interrupt the command.

Get cluster credentials

Downloads the kubeconfig and merges it into your local kubectl context.

$ az aks get-credentials --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks

Verify connectivity

Confirms kubectl can reach the cluster and shows the node status.

$ kubectl get nodes

Deploy a sample workload

Deploys an nginx pod with two replicas and exposes it via an Azure Load Balancer.

$ kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx:latest --replicas=2 && kubectl expose deployment nginx --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer

Scale the cluster

Adds another node to the cluster to handle increased load.

$ az aks scale --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks --node-count 3

Full Script

full-script.sh

# Create and manage an AKS cluster
az group create --name aks-rg --location eastus
az aks create --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks --node-count 2 --node-vm-size Standard_B2s --generate-ssh-keys --enable-managed-identity
az aks get-credentials --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks
kubectl get nodes
kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx:latest --replicas=2
kubectl expose deployment nginx --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer
az aks scale --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks --node-count 3

FAQ

Discussion

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# Create and manage an AKS cluster az group create --name aks-rg --location eastus az aks create --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks --node-count 2 --node-vm-size Standard_B2s --generate-ssh-keys --enable-managed-identity az aks get-credentials --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks kubectl get nodes kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx:latest --replicas=2 kubectl expose deployment nginx --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer az aks scale --resource-group aks-rg --name myaks --node-count 3