Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Reviews

Could you please describe your customers' usual use cases for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

Could you please tell what features of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) you have found the most valuable?

There might be something that you find indispensable in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

In your experience, how has the integration of Azure Active Directory with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) helped enhance the security of application?

Could you please assess the impact of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) built-in monitoring and logging features on your ability to track applications performance and troubleshoot issues?

How have the monitoring and logging features impacted the ability to track application performance and troubleshoot issues?

Could you please tell what areas of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) you think could be improved or enhanced?

It doesn't necessarily have to be something advanced. Perhaps there are some minor things, such as improving the user interface, making the configuration or customization more flexible. Or maybe there were some limitations that you would prefer to remove?

Would you prefer to improve the flexibility with the network services?

Four or five years now?

Could you please rate how scalable this solution is from 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest scalability?

Specifically about the scalability, does it scale well? Does it need improvements?

Could you please share your impression on the pricing, setup cost and licensing of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

The costs could be optimized in some way.

Have you been working with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

Has automatic scaling capability helped your organization, or your customers' organization, to manage varying workloads and ensure high availability?

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The solution is used to deploy applications in a very highly scalable model. Any customer can deploy the application. They won't have to worry about the scalability and reliability of the VM. Most things are taken care of by AKS.

Containerization of the applications is the most valuable feature. It needs effort at the code level to decouple the existing codes and put different templates in different clusters. However, once it is done, the tool is highly scalable and reliable.

If any customer uses a traditional code, the code-level changes take a lot of time. Once that is done, there are no challenges. After that, it is pretty straightforward. It would be good if the vendor could provide an out-of-the-box solution that would enable customers to deploy things directly without worrying about code-level changes. Then, the customer does not have to worry about developing the solution again or adding new libraries to the existing code to make the code cloud-ready.

I have been using the solution for three to four years.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

AKS is a highly scalable model. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. Almost 60% of our customers are using the solution. Apart from the SMB customers, all the others are using the product.

I did not face any major challenges. I faced issues once or twice, and it was sorted in a day or two. The support is good.

The time taken for deployment depends on the use cases. The deployment can take 10 to 30 days, depending on the environment and solution we are working with.

The return on investment is not that high. Our customer has to change the codes to move to AKS. Convincing the management about the ROI is pretty tough in such scenarios. However, the tool will produce a good ROI in the long run.

From a licensing perspective, moving from a traditional model to a new one won't make much difference because the same virtual machine is being used in the backend. We are just adding a layer that gives the organization more flexibility and manageability. The solution does not cost much.

The customers have to pay an extra $100 or $150 based on their number of clusters. It won't make much of a difference for any environment. If an organization pays $100 for a normal infrastructure, it will hardly cost 10% extra with added manageability and scalability. It would hardly make a dent in the pocket.

Azure Kubernetes Service is a good solution for any organisation wanting to opt for containerization. AI can be integrated with the application. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is containerizing and deploying microservices applications for high scalability within our environment.

The platform's high scalability is one of its biggest advantages.

In terms of cost perspective, they could make the product more affordable.

We have been using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for the past year.

It is a stable product.

It is a scalable platform.

The technical support team is knowledgeable.

It is easy to create a Kubernetes cluster. It is developed and managed automatically. The pipeline setup takes two to minutes to complete. However, setting up configurations and other components might take a week.

Azure Kubernetes Service offers a pay-as-you-go licensing model.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) streamlines container deployment and management through our Jenkins pipelines. The continuous integration and deployment process involves fetching the code from Git, building it, containerizing it with Docker, and then deploying it.

The scalability features have the most positive impact on our operations. As we experience a substantial increase in the number of users and the traffic to our applications grows yearly, it efficiently handles the heavy workload and concurrent transactions.

Its managed services streamline scalability without the need for extensive capacity planning compared to a self-managed Kubernetes environment. This approach enhances operational efficiency and aligns with similar offerings in other cloud platforms, making managed services a preferred choice for many organizations.

It is a highly reliable and secure product. I rate it an eight out of ten.

We use AKS as part of our CI/CD pipeline.

We utilize a combination of custom microservice applications and open-source software, including tools like AKS. Additionally, some of the open-source applications we employ are accessed through subscription models. The primary tools we use are web-based applications, and Microsoft services play a significant role in supporting our traditional services.

There are concerns about potential disruptions or outages, given the power infrastructure challenges in our country. This is why we are considering alternative cloud options. There is room for improvement in automation processes, as well.

I have been working with it for five years.

We had a positive experience within the Azure Cloud environment, but the connection between clients and on-premises resources can be challenging. This is a significant concern for us because, at times, our compound fiber experiences outages due to firewall issues. In some instances, even with a side-to-side connection, we've encountered stability issues. It's important to note that this is not solely an Azure issue but rather a broader challenge we face.

It offers good scalability features.

Their support is exceptional, and we've consistently had a positive experience with them. If I were to rate their performance on a scale of one to ten, it would be a solid ten.

Positive

The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. We didn't have any issues with it.

The deployment takes a few days. We have a dedicated team of engineers, typically numbering between three to five individuals, who are responsible for managing it.

It is a cost-effective solution.

It is very user-friendly and incredibly straightforward. It allows us to establish infrastructure rapidly, making it our preferred choice over other providers. I would rate it ten out of ten.

The requests get processed within seconds. Earlier, it used to take around four to five minutes. 

The product has  built-in functionality that checks whether the service is available or not. In case the service is down, the tool will create a new instance by default. Hence, the web API will be always up irrespective of the server or the situation. 

The product needs to support a UI dashboard. I have to execute every single command to check the status of services which takes time. 

I am using the tool for three years. 

The product is not stable. 

The tool's scalability is high. You just need to mention the maximum and minimum replicas that you need at a certain time. It will increase the load by default and upscale immediately. My company has around 200 users for the product. 

The product's setup is difficult. If everything is written in your code or you are replacing the values or replacing the credential on the run time, then it's not difficult. But if you want to read those values from the keyword, it can be challenging. The product's deployment takes only seconds to complete. We have seven resources for the tool's deployment. However, the configuration part takes time which can be around five to ten minutes since we need to create a new AKS resource, public IP, etc. 

The product's deployment was done in-house. 

The product follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model which is good for small enterprises. You need to pay only for the services that you use. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. The solution has good integration with ACR and .NET. Its documentation also gets updated frequently. 

We have two primary use cases of this solution. One, we deploy microservices for our customers using the Kubernetes cluster. For example, we have deployed Kafka on Kubernetes as well as Azure functions, which uses the same Kubernetes cluster. 

The other use case is for our internal usage. We only have microservices and Azure Functions, we don't have elastic or data. We do have a tight integration between Azure services and Kubernetes. The concept is called KEDA, or Kubernetes event-driven autoscaling. This means that if there are no services messaging you, Kubernetes usage will be zero. However, if there is a burst of traffic for my services, Kubernetes will create accordingly. 

The most valuable feature of AKS is that when I am sitting at the cluster, I can ensure compliance. Compliance is easy right out-of-the-box with integration to Azure Security, Azure Active Directory, and Azure Policies. The entire cluster is secure by design and not added as an afterthought. 

The other feature I like about AKS is that because of ransomware attacks, Microsoft has released specific guidance on threat matters. AKS is based on framework. This framework uses the proper guidance architect to tell you how the cluster should be designed. 

Another valuable feature is that AKS tells you exactly what you should do with each threat. It will guide you to improve the cluster, deploy something on the cluster, operate the cluster, and when you are trying to heal the cluster. It is very actionable.

Unfortunately, when a microservice fails, Azure can take up to 60 seconds to broadcast an alert to the monitoring agents. For a lot of the microservices, this is too late, particularly for serious failures.

Microsoft would benefit by offering enhanced learning and certification. Kubernetes is now mainstream and becoming more and more integral. Creating an Azure Kubernetes certification would ensure there are specialists in the market that could adapt best practices in a more structured fashion. 

I have been using Azure Kubernetes Service for three years.

The solution is stable. In the past three years, I have never experienced any serious problems.

We have internally two people to maintain AKS and for our customers, we have multiple people. There are a couple of DevOps resources who are trained in Terraform and are Azure DevOps certified who operate the cluster. 

We rely upon monitoring and alert mechanisms. Basically, we do not need to be on the server with a dedicated resource. We only need to look at the alerts, as the solution is self-healing. 

Scalability depends on how the architect designs the cluster. Once a Kubernetes cluster is up and running, the auto-scaling works according to the basic design. If I need a different node pool, then I need to create a design cluster. If this is done correctly, scalability by design or architecture is not an issue. It is up to the individual architects to be disciplined in considering future needs and build in flexibility.

The initial setup of AKS is a breeze. Straight out of the box, with experience, it takes only 30 minutes. Setting up a secure cluster takes only 30 minutes. I use Terraform extensively, so it is pretty easy to set up. I would rate the initial setup a five out of five for ease of setup.

I did the deployment of AKS myself with two other people. One from networking with an infrastructure point of view to handle the set-up of the V-Net by controlling the IP address range. The other person is the one who manages Azure Active Directory.

There is an initial infrastructure cost, however, the more services you deploy, the cost per service comes down drastically because you are leveraging the underlying infrastructure. As you scale your operations, AKS becomes more cost-effective.

The cost of AKS is humongous, it is very expensive. You are charged based on the nodes, the networking, and the storage. Multi-clusters are another consideration, especially if you need to add firewalls.

It is important to keep in mind that the cost is not just the licensing, but also the human resource cost. Every organization should have some idea about what they should be putting into Kubernetes together with the type of people, and types of resources required to monitor, alert, and operate the solution.

Compared to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service and OpenShift, Microsoft Azure has very specific guidance on how to secure an entire cluster with multiple inputs. This is really phenomenal. This guidance is missing in the other products.

Anyone considering AKS as a solution should be sure they consider the design carefully and give a lot of focus to the initial setup. 

I also recommend that the organization is clear on what its end goal is, otherwise they will incur too many additional costs. 

Lastly, keep in mind that it is difficult for the executive level to understand what Kubernetes is and that it is not the answer to everything.

Overall, I would rate Azure Kubernetes Service a seven out of ten.

Our use case is for any microservice that requires a Kubernetes platform for deployment. But primarily, my reason for using it was to develop a tool for our clients to migrate their deployments from Pivotal Cloud Foundry, which is now out of support. I wrote a tool to automatically convert Pivotal configurations into Kubernetes and then deployed them on Azure Kubernetes Service for testing the mapping and tool output.

So it's more of a migration from Pivotal Cloud Foundry to Kubernetes and deployments, with Azure AKS as the target platform.

For most of our deployments, we utilize Azure DevOps pipelines. It provides a seamless experience with a fantastic console and user interface. You can configure the pipeline steps, including pulling code from the Git repository, triggering execution, building the container image, and pushing it to the Kubernetes clusters. All of this can be done on a single screen, making configuration easy and intuitive for developers.

One area that could be improved is the Azure CLI. It would be beneficial if they could abstract some of the complexities related to deployment scripts and make them a part of Azure CLI. This would help reduce the scripting required in the DevOps pipeline for deployments.

In future releases, it would be great to have more container management functions available directly on Kubernetes. For example, auto-scaling features and the ability to configure the initial number of container replicas and memory allocation from the console itself. This would minimize the need for developers to manually modify the manifest file most of the time. It could provide an additional layer of protection and security, allowing only authorized personnel to make changes to the manifest, while others can modify configurations through the web console for specific services when necessary.

I have been using Azure Kubernetes Service for a year.

There are no such concerns or issues with stability. Any issues arising from the written code or application design may require troubleshooting.

From a platform perspective, there are no concerns on the infrastructure or platform side where we need to contact anyone.

Azure Kubernetes Service is pretty robust in terms of scalability and auto-scaling fixes.

Even large organizations are putting their workloads on AKS. They have data centers globally distributed, which is a desirable feature for many of our clients operating in multiple geographies with their businesses. The service provider has data centers distributed across Shield, offering extensive coverage. For example, earlier in the UAE and the Middle East, AWS used to be the only option, and they have strict regulations around data privacy and protection that disallow data to move outside the borders. Microsoft has set up data centers in Bahrain and Dubai exclusively for Azure, offering an attractive alternative. Most of our clients from NetRegen, who had the AWS option only, are now moving to Azure for its enhanced capabilities.

I rate the solution’s scalability a nine out of ten.

Azure Kubernetes Service is better than Amazon and Google because it is extremely seamless, and its user interface is very intuitive and minimal. There are no additional configurations that you need to do. For example, Amazon and Google are very cryptic with many indirections, making their documentation hard to read. In contrast, Microsoft has done a fantastic job simplifying everything and keeping only the bare minimum. The documentation is also quite good to support the developers and offer a better user-friendly experience for them.

The initial setup is pretty simple.

You would probably need developers and DevOps engineers for the initial setup. It is intuitive and has good documentation. So, you don't need to contact the vendors or any external consultant.

Running workloads on Amazon or Google are more expensive than Azure Kubernetes Service.

I rate the solution’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is high and ten is low.

Azure Kubernetes Service is my go-to and preferred platform over Amazon and Google.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We began utilizing AKS this year. Our aim is to embrace cloud-native practices, and Kubernetes is an excellent choice for achieving that. Additionally, Nicola seems to be well-suited for our needs. Therefore, we decided to adopt Kubernetes as our platform for software development. This allows us to enable the app team to effortlessly create infrastructure using the infrastructure scope. While we still rely on virtual machines, it is solely for the purpose of visualization, not for hosting the service. Our focus remains on building specialized software.

AKS provides a convenient solution for developers. When working locally, developers can leverage containerization technologies like Docker and Docker Compose. However, when it comes to testing environments, the Infrastructure as Code feature of AKS allows for easy setup of the entire testing environment. The team can collaborate and make necessary adjustments, while developers can switch back to their local environment whenever needed. The staging environment follows a similar pattern, as the same template can be applied, enabling quick hosting of the entire infrastructure. This approach saves a significant amount of time in infrastructure creation. Additionally, it adds another layer for the DevOps team, reducing their burden of dealing with cloud infrastructure details and allowing them to focus on capabilities. This streamlined process can be replicated across multiple projects, making it a valuable aspect of AKS.

The advantage of AKS is somewhat greater than that of Kubernetes, such as those provided by Google Cloud or AWS. However, the unique benefit offered by Microsoft is its robust CI/CD capabilities, along with the Azure feature for building workflows. When you combine the entire ecosystem, AKS becomes an excellent choice, particularly for enterprise applications.

Microsoft is known for its groundbreaking desktop operating system and has developed an efficient and user-friendly application called Orchestrate. It serves as a business workflow management tool, allowing enterprises to streamline their processes effortlessly. Additionally, Microsoft now offers the Logic application, which further simplifies workflow creation for businesses at an enterprise level.

AKS could enhance its functionality by introducing a blueprint feature that streamlines and expedites the process. With a blueprint, users can leverage pre-defined configurations, including some common survey elements, reducing the need for extensive customization and allowing us to focus on our core business activities. Additionally, if the blueprint covers security aspects, it would be greatly beneficial, as it eliminates the need for us to build security expertise from scratch. Currently, we encounter challenges during cloud onboarding, security implementation, and adapting to Kubernetes. Although Microsoft may not consider these as their direct responsibility, providing a blueprint similar to what they offer to developers would be highly advantageous.

I have been using Kubernetes Service (AKS) for approximately one year.

I have not had a bad experience with AKS. It is stable.

I rate the stability of AKS an eight out of ten.

The scalability of AKS is good enough for our current business. If people want to have higher scalability, they move to Amazon AWS.

I rate the scalability of AKS an eight out of ten.

We are a very big organization and we rely on our internal support.

The setup of AKS can be complicated.

We have seen a return on investment. 

I rate the ROI of AKS an eight out of ten.

We are facing a significant challenge regarding OEM licensing. The issue arises from the fact that certain licenses required for our own purposes are not provided by Microsoft's licensing. Consequently, we are unsure about the most suitable mobile license provisioning model offered by third-party providers.

The software necessitates licensing, and it becomes a complex issue when we provision multiple virtual machines with that software installed. Managing the licensing model becomes challenging as we face uncertainties regarding payment to the vendor. For instance, if we initially create three virtual machines with high demand but later require a hundred, the payment structure becomes unclear.

I rate the price of AKS a six out of ten.

The price is expensive but a lower price can be found. There are various different types of licenses.

My advice to others is to be aware of the in-depth setup.

I rate AKS an eight out of ten.

In general, building services within this solution can be complex and demanding, particularly in terms of the investment required for DevOps and SecOps. If your team lacks extensive technical expertise, it might be challenging to start directly with Kubernetes. However, if you have individuals with sufficient internet skills, you can leverage the scalability and simplicity offered by Kubernetes. Here, simplicity refers to the consistent experience compared to migrating from on-premise to the cloud. Nonetheless, the investment in pre-existing knowledge, appropriate SKUs, and skilled personnel is crucial. Applying Kubernetes is still not a straightforward task and requires careful consideration.