AKS Deployment Center

AKS has deployment center from where you can Launch a docker app to Azure kubernetes cluster in a few quick steps. Deployment center lets you configure a DevOps pipeline to deploy your application updates to this kubernetes cluster

Prerequisites

• AKS Cluster. See: Creating AKS Cluster
• Azure DevOps. See: Azure DevOps Repository

Docker For Local Run

• Enable Hyper-V
  • File explorer > “Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features”
  • Turn windows feature on or off > enable Hyper-V
• Docker Installation (skip if already installed)
  • Download & install: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install/
  • You might need “Linux kernel update package”(https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_x64.msi)

Docker is needed because before pushing to DevOps repository, we need to make sure that the application is running locally as Docker container.

Container Orchestrator Support

Scaffolding new project

• Use template: ‘Container Application for Kubernetes’
• Filters to find the template: C#, Azure, Web

Adding ‘Container Orchestrator Support’ to existing project

• Right click on the Visual Studio Project > Add > ‘Container Orchestrator Support…’
• Select “Kubernetes/Helm” > Ok
• Dockerfile, helm charts etc. will be added

Prepare DevOps Repository

• Make sure Dockerfile is added to the project
• Make sure Dockerfile is pushed to the DevOps repository after adding (Otherwise ‘Dockerfile not found’ error will show up)

Creating Deployment

• Don’t forget to use ‘Build context: $(Build.Repository.LocalPath)’ (instead of default filled up value)
• AKS ‘Deployment Center’ is in preview mode (as of May, 2021)
  • ‘Create new namespace’ or ‘Use existing namespace’ does not work (even if you set)
  • Namespace will be generated randomly
  • Image name will be generated randomly (edit CI, CD pipeline to fix image name i.e. ‘myapp:latest’)
  • Things might not work or broken

Resources Created By DevOps Pipeline

• A service principle in Azure AD
  • DevOps > Project settings
  • Service connections > List of service connections
• Assigned Roles and administrators
  • Application administrator
  • Cloud application administrator
• Pipelines in Azure DevOps
  • CI pipeline
  • Release Pipeline and Deployment (CD)

Exploring CI Pipeline

Exploring CD Pipeline

Links

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-developer-community-blog/building-microservices-with-azure-kubernetes-service-and-azure/ba-p/356402
• StackOverflow:
  • Question: Azure Pipeline to build docker images fails using same docker file in Visual Studio
  • Answer : https://stackoverflow.com/a/58910426/4802664
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/containers/container-tools-react?view=vs-2019#modify-the-dockerfile-linux-containers
• https://alakbarv.azurewebsites.net/2019/01/11/dockerize-asp-net-core-angular-application-solving-error-the-command-npm-install-exited-with-code-127/

things learnd from trial and error in DevOps pipeline

Deployment from AKS deployment center

• must use : $(Build.Repository.LocalPath) for build context
• Edit pipeline and use environment variable to name your image properly i.e. foo.acr.azure.com/$(Build.Repository.Name):$(Build.BuildId)
• Edit CD
  • Use image name accordingly: foo.acr.azure.com/$(Build.Repository.Name):$(Build.BuildId)