Kickstart Your Kubernetes Journey with AKS: From Cluster Creation to Pod Management

🧭 Introduction

In the cloud-native world, Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications. Whether you’re a developer, system admin, or DevOps engineer, learning Kubernetes is a must-have skill.

In this blog, we will cover:

What is Kubernetes and AKS?
How to create your first Kubernetes cluster on Azure
The core building block: Pods
Hands-on labs: Namespaces, Pod creation, YAML, labels, and interactive access

Let’s break this down with theory + practical labs to give you a full-circle understanding! 🔄

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🌩️ What is Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes service offered by Microsoft Azure. It simplifies the deployment, management, and operations of Kubernetes clusters by:

Handling control plane management
Integrating with Azure AD, monitoring, and logging
Providing automatic updates and scaling
Reducing operational overhead for teams

💡 With AKS, you don’t need to worry about manually setting up the Kubernetes master components—it’s managed for you!

⚙️ Step-by-Step: Creating Your First AKS Cluster

🚀 Step 1: Launch Azure Cloud Shell

Azure Cloud Shell is a browser-based terminal that comes preconfigured with the Azure CLI.

Open Azure Portal.
Click on the Cloud Shell icon in the top-right corner.
Choose Bash, wait for initialization.

🔧 Step 2: Set Environment Variables

RESOURCE_GROUP=”K8S-RG”

CLUSTER_NAME=”aks-cluster”

LOCATION="centralus"

1	LOCATION="centralus"

✅ These variables help in reusability and better scripting practices.

📌 Make sure Resource Group already exists

☸️ Step 3: Create the AKS Cluster

az aks create --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --name $CLUSTER_NAME --node-count 2 --node-vm-size Standard_DS2_v2  --generate-ssh-keys

1	az aks create --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --name $CLUSTER_NAME --node-count 2 --node-vm-size Standard_DS2_v2 --generate-ssh-keys

This command does the following:

Creates a managed Kubernetes cluster with 2 worker nodes
Uses VM size Standard_DS2_v2 (2 vCPUs, 7GB RAM)
Generates SSH keys for secure access

⏳ Takes a few minutes. After completion, you’ll get details like fqdn, kubeConfig path, and more.

🔗 Step 4: Connect to Your AKS Cluster

Get a list of Kubernetes Clusters

az aks list -o table

1	az aks list -o table

az aks get-credentials -n aks-cluster -g K8S-RG

1	az aks get-credentials -n aks-cluster -g K8S-RG

📌 This downloads the kubeconfig and merges it with your local Kubernetes config, allowing you to use kubectl commands.

✅ Step 5: Verify the Cluster Nodes

kubectl get nodes

1	kubectl get nodes

📌 This confirms the cluster is active and nodes are ready.

📦 Understanding Kubernetes Pods

🔍 What is a Pod?

A Pod is the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes. It wraps one or more containers, networking, storage, and metadata into a single logical unit.

Think of a Pod as a single virtual machine, but designed for containers.

🧱 Pod Architecture

Containers: One or more (most often one)
Shared IP: Containers share the same IP and port space
Volumes: Shared storage volumes across containers in a Pod

📊 Pod Types

Type	Use Case
Single-container	Most applications (e.g., NGINX, Node.js apps)
Multi-container	Sidecar patterns like log collectors, proxies

🔁 Pod Lifecycle

Phase	Description
Pending	Pod created but containers not started
Running	Containers running normally
Succeeded	Containers completed successfully
Failed	Containers terminated with errors
Unknown	State could not be determined

⚡ Init Containers

Init containers run before app containers start. Used for:

Pre-loading configs
Waiting for a database to be ready
Running setup tasks

📌 They run sequentially and must complete before the main app starts.

🧪 Lab : Kubernetes Pods

⚙️ Task 1: Create Pod via Command Line

kubectl run nginx-pod --image=nginx --port=80

1	kubectl run nginx-pod --image=nginx --port=80

kubectl get pod

1	kubectl get pod

kubectl describe pod nginx-pod

1	kubectl describe pod nginx-pod

You’ve created a pod running the NGINX web server.

📝 Task 2: Create Pod via YAML

Why YAML?
YAML provides declarative configuration, making it reusable, version-controlled, and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) friendly.

Create the file:

vi httpd-pod.yaml

1	vi httpd-pod.yaml

Paste this config:

apiVersion: v1

kind: Pod

metadata:

  name: httpd-pod

  labels:

    env: prod

    type: front-end

    app: httpd-ws

spec:

  containers:

  - name: httpd-container

    image: httpd

    ports:

    - containerPort: 80

apiVersion: v1

kind: Pod

metadata:

name: httpd-pod

labels:

env: prod

type: front-end

app: httpd-ws

spec:

containers:

- name: httpd-container

image: httpd

ports:

- containerPort: 80

Apply it:

kubectl apply -f httpd-pod.yaml

1	kubectl apply -f httpd-pod.yaml

kubectl get pods

1	kubectl get pods

kubectl get pods -o wide

1	kubectl get pods -o wide

kubectl describe pod httpd-pod

1	kubectl describe pod httpd-pod

🔧 Task 3: Exec into Pod

🚪 Why Use kubectl exec?

You may need to:

Debug issues inside a pod
Install utilities for testing
Inspect config files or logs

kubectl exec -it httpd-pod -- /bin/bash

1	kubectl exec -it httpd-pod -- /bin/bash

Type exit to return.

🧠 Conclusion

You’ve now completed a foundational journey in Kubernetes using AKS, learning how to provision clusters, manage pods, and interact with workloads using both commands and YAML. This forms the base for running production-grade containerized applications on Azure.

To advance your career and solidify your expertise, consider these next steps:

Build a strong foundation in Azure resource management with the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate certification.
Take your DevOps skills further by mastering CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployments, and cloud-native practices with the AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions certification.

🚀 With these certifications, you’ll be fully prepared to design, implement, and scale enterprise-grade cloud-native DevOps solutions powered by Kubernetes and Azure AKS.

📚 Further Reading & Official Reference

For more information, best practices, and advanced use cases, visit the official Kubernetes documentation:

🔗 https://kubernetes.io

For Azure-specific Kubernetes documentation (AKS):

🔗 https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/aks

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About CloudThat

CloudThat is an award-winning company and the first in India to offer cloud training and consulting services worldwide. As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, AWS Advanced Tier Training Partner, and Google Cloud Platform Partner, CloudThat has empowered over 850,000 professionals through 600+ cloud certifications winning global recognition for its training excellence including 20 MCT Trainers in Microsoft’s Global Top 100 and an impressive 12 awards in the last 8 years. CloudThat specializes in Cloud Migration, Data Platforms, DevOps, IoT, and cutting-edge technologies like Gen AI & AI/ML. It has delivered over 500 consulting projects for 250+ organizations in 30+ countries as it continues to empower professionals and enterprises to thrive in the digital-first world.