Microsoft Extends Kubernetes Reach Beyond Azure
At its Ignite 2022 conference today, Microsoft launched a series of updates to its platforms for building and deploying cloud-native applications, including the ability to deploy Azure Kubernetes Service from the cloud to the network edge.
IT teams will be able to centrally deploy and manage AKS using the Azure Arc management platform on Windows devices, Windows Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Windows Server 2019/2022 and Azure Stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platforms. Available in preview, this capability promises to make it simpler to synchronize the management of AKS across multiple platforms. Microsoft also revealed it intends to make AKS available on platforms other than Windows at some as-yet unspecified date.
In addition, Microsoft is making Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager available in preview to enable IT teams to centralize the management of multiple Kubernetes clusters. It stores configurations along with making it simpler to provision load balancing for north-south traffic flowing between endpoints and clusters.
Microsoft is also expanding the number of third-party applications optimized for Kubernetes that will be made available via the billing process managed by Azure Marketplace.
Another addition to the Kubernetes portfolio includes confidential virtual machine node pools for AKS using third-generation AMD EPYC processors infused with Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) security features.
There is also now a managed Prometheus service to monitor IT environments and the addition of alert rule recommendations, available in preview, with the Azure Monitor service for AKS.
Finally, Microsoft has added Azure Container for PyTorch to make it easier to build portable artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told conference attendees that these and other addition to the Microsoft Azure portfolio are the latest editions to a platform that is evolving into “the world’s computer.” The goal is to enable organizations to deliver on their digital imperatives, he added.
It’s not clear what percentage of the applications being deployed on Microsoft Azure are running on AKS versus monolithic applications that are deployed on legacy virtual machines. However, a much larger percentage of new applications are cloud-native, which creates an opportunity for cloud service providers to convince IT teams to shift from one platform to another as they adopt a new paradigm for building and deploying applications.
Of course, very few organizations will have an application portfolio made up entirely of cloud-native applications, so the challenge going forward will be finding a way to manage a mix of applications built using a range of architectures that are going to be distributed from the cloud to the network edge. At the core of Microsoft’s effort to achieve that goal is Azure Arc, a centralized management service that Microsoft is extending to manage Kubernetes distributions along with now legacy platforms. IT teams can, for example, employ an Azure Automanage service to automate the configuration and management of servers whether they are in Azure or in hybrid environments managed via Azure Arc.
Naturally, other cloud service providers have similar ambitions, so how hybrid cloud computing environments will ultimately be managed remains to be seen. However, the one thing that is clear is no matter how distributed the IT environment becomes, there will be multiple ways to centrally manage it.
