Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is the platform to orchestrate containers and build scalable cloud native applications.
But why should you use it, and what are the use cases of the managed Kubernetes (AKS) service offered by Microsoft?
Reading time 9 minutes Published: 03 July 2025
Azure Kubernetes Service, AKS, is the managed Kubernetes service from Microsoft Azure. It makes it easier to deploy, manage and scale containerised apps with Kubernetes without having to set up or maintain your own control plane.
AKS’s purpose is to offload the operational overhead that usually comes with managing Kubernetes clusters.
When using AKS, you benefit from the broad ecosystem of services that Azure offers, covering everything from software development and planning to management, infrastructure orchestration, load balancing, and auto‑scaling.
These services run on public servers in a pay-as-you-go model, making them both flexible and scalable.
By running Kubernetes on Azure, you offload many of the difficult setup and management tasks and gain seamless capabilities like end-to-end deployment, high availability, and auto-scaling.
In our free (90 minute) workshop of only 90 minutes, you will receive the benefits and best practices in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
Click here for dates and sign up!There are many reasons why you will love AKS:
If you want to get started with AKS, you can use the free tier in AKS. This tier is great for starting with small clusters and development and testing environments.
Every Kubernetes cluster needs master nodes to manage workloads and maintain configuration. In AKS, Microsoft runs these master nodes for you at no cost. You only pay for the worker nodes and the resources your workloads consume.
AKS integrates well with Azure DevOps and GitHub actions, making it easy to set up CI/CD pipelines. For CI and CD pipelines, uptime is crucial, especially in production. AKS supports rolling updates, which allow you to update containers one at a time without taking the system offline, and thus no downtime.
Microsoft is one of the largest participating organisations that actively develops on Kubernetes. As a result, AKS gets excellent support and fast updates. New Kubernetes versions are typically available in Azure within two weeks of release. What’s usually a complex upgrade process is simplified to a few clicks in AKS (or can even be fully automated within your maintenance windows).
AKS lets you scale your cluster almost endlessly. You can add or remove VMs on the fly, with no downtime. Need more capacity? Add nodes in a few clicks, or simply let the cluster autoscaler handle it for you. Learn more about scaling in AKS.
With Node Auto Provisioning (NAP) it can also run on VM’s with the help of the open source tool called Karpenter. It's a way to use VM’s rather than VMSS and have mixed SKU size node pools, basically giving you more control over how your nodes are provisioned and optimised.
AKS constantly checks the health of your pods. Meaning, if one crashes or becomes stops responding, it’s replaced automatically. Zero manual work or intervention is required.
AKS clusters in Azure run on Availability Sets, which spread your nodes across separate physical hardware racks. This protects against hardware failure and keeps your cluster, and so your application online and available all the time.
With Node Auto Provisioning (NAP) it can also run on VM’s with the help of the open source tool called Karpenter.Also in preview is a way to use VM’s rather than VMSS and have mixed sku size node pools.
AKS monitors the Kubernetes API server as part of the managed control plane. If issues occur, Azure handles recovery to keep the control plane stable and available.
Azure makes it easier to enforce governance policies across multiple clusters through Azure Policy, which integrates with Gatekeeper and the Open Policy Agent (OPA), two open source CNCF tools. Learn more about how Azure Policy works for Kubernetes clusters.
Last, but not least: Azure Kubernetes Service also excels when it comes to integrations. You get unmatched integrations with other Azure services. Think of integration with storage, networking, monitoring and security.
Creating an AKS cluster isn’t that hard: you can actually have a cluster running in minutes. But what about clusters for production environments?
Lean here how to create an AKS cluster ready for production!AKS follows the standard Kubernetes architecture, yet Microsoft manages the control plane for you. The AKS cluster is divided into two main parts: the control plane and the node plane.
Here's what that looks like:
You don’t install or manage the control plane; it’s entirely handled by Azure. This includes core components like:
The worker nodes run in your subscription as Azure VMs and host the actual workloads:
You can set up an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster quickly and easily through the Azure portal; just launch the setup wizard and click through the steps. Or better, use Azure CLI commands, Azure PowerShell, or define a Bicep template.
Regardless of your deployment method choice, when you create the AKS cluster, a control plane is also created and configured automatically.
To recap the AKS architecture: the master node(s) are fully managed by Azure. Multiple replicas exist, but you don’t have direct access to them or visibility.
In addition, AKS configures the worker nodes (customer-managed) once the user deploys the cluster and specifies the node (VM) number and size. Each worker node runs as an Azure virtual machine and hosts one or more pods.
Azure Kubernetes Service is ideal for projects using modern agile development practices or high variability workloads where you want control over scaling but still prefer a managed environment. However, there are so many more reasons to adopt Azure Kubernetes.
The table below sums up some of the use cases:
| Use case | Description |
| Microservices | Simplify the deployment and management of applications based on microservices. Take advantage of built-in horizontal scaling, load balancing, self-healing, and secret management. |
| Migration of existing applications to container workloads | Migrate existing apps into containers and run them in a managed Kubernetes environment without having to rearchitect. |
| DevOps | Use AKS to combine speed and security in your CI/CD workflows. Integrate security into your pipelines without slowing delivery. |
| Bursting with ACI | Offload short-lived or burst workloads to Azure Container Instances (ACI) using AKS virtual nodes. Pods can start in seconds and scale on demand. |
| Using Windows containers on AKS | Run Windows Server containers to migrate legacy apps to the cloud without rewriting them. Supports mixed OS workloads in the same cluster. |
| Machine Learning | Use AKS to train models at scale. It supports parallel jobs and large datasets. |
| Data streaming | Process real-time data from millions of events or sensors. AKS can handle fast ingest and compute to support real-time analytics. |
| Disaster recovery | AKS supports regional redundancy and recovery strategies, such as Availability zones, so you stay online during outages and failures. |
Whereas AKS is the managed Kubernetes platform for Microsoft Azure, there are also other managed Kubernetes services like EKS (Amazon Elastic Kubernetes), GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) and many others, all with their own features and benefits.
But why choose for AKS and one of the others?
To sum up, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a potent orchestration tool for deploying and managing containerised apps. Its flexibility, built-in security, scalability and tight integration across the Azure platform allow teams to deploy faster, scale efficiently and gain more reliability for their applications running in the cloud.
Although AKS removes the complexity of managing Kubernetes clusters, there’s still a learning curve when it comes to deploying and operating containerised apps on Kubernetes.
Not only that, but dealing with setup, cluster management, scaling, security, cost – you name it… it can all become a constant source of hassle, slowing your team down.
AKS Control by Intercept takes that weight off your shoulders:
With AKS Control, you don’t have to manage Kubernetes or servers yourself. We take care of your AKS environment, from setup to scaling so you can grow your business.
See how we manage AKS for you!What is the difference between AKS and Kubernetes?
What are the differences between AKS and Azure Service Fabric?
