Kubernetes Service

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Microsoft’s flagship Kubernetes (often abbreviated as “K8s”) offering, provides orchestration (deployment, provisioning, and automation) and management of container-based production applications as a managed Azure service. Kubernetes is the most broadly used open source software solution for container orchestration. AKS deploys and manages VM-based container host infrastructure and updates the VMs and Kubernetes software, which can simplify infrastructure management for the customer.

Service Overview 

AKS offers a managed orchestration service for customers who want to use Kubernetes for their container deployment but do not want to deal with deployment and operational complexity of the underlying software. AKS allows organizations to deploy a container hosting environment on a collection of Azure VMs called a cluster, and it provides Kubernetes orchestration as a Microsoft-managed hosted service. This approach simplifies cluster management for the customer and removes the requirement to deploy VMs that would otherwise host orchestration software. (See “Understanding Containers“.)