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AKS Consulting Services

We design, build, and operate Azure Kubernetes Service clusters, from Terraform provisioning and Workload Identity to Azure AD RBAC, observability, and safe version upgrades.

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Problems we solve

  • AKS cluster created via Azure Portal with no ARM templates or Terraform, impossible to reproduce
  • Using the default node pool for everything, no separation between system and user workloads
  • Azure AD integration misconfigured, developers use cluster-admin instead of scoped RBAC
  • Node pool upgrades manual and scary, last upgrade caused pod eviction failures
  • No Azure Monitor or Prometheus integration, no visibility into cluster health

What's included

AKS cluster provisioned via Terraform (azurerm provider) with remote state in Azure Storage
System and user node pool separation with appropriate VM SKU selection
Azure AD integration and RBAC with least-privilege role bindings
Azure CNI or Overlay networking with appropriate subnet sizing
Cluster autoscaler or KEDA for workload-driven scaling
Azure Monitor Container Insights + Prometheus/Grafana stack
Azure Key Vault Secrets Provider (CSI driver) for secrets management
Workload Identity (replacement for AAD Pod Identity)
Upgrade runbook with staging cluster validation

Our approach

  1. 01

    Architecture review

    We assess your Azure subscription structure, networking design, and compliance requirements (GDPR, ISO 27001 if applicable). We design the target AKS architecture.

  2. 02

    Terraform implementation

    We provision the AKS cluster, node pools, virtual network, Azure Container Registry, and supporting resources using Terraform modules with remote state.

  3. 03

    Identity and RBAC

    We configure Azure AD integration, Workload Identity for pod-level Azure RBAC, and Kubernetes RBAC with role bindings mapped to Azure AD groups.

  4. 04

    Observability setup

    Azure Monitor Container Insights for basic metrics and logs, plus a Prometheus/Grafana stack for custom metrics and advanced dashboards. Alertmanager routes to email or Teams/Slack.

  5. 05

    Handover

    Runbook, Terraform state handover, and a live walkthrough with your engineering team covering day-2 operations.

Tech stack

Azure AKSTerraform (azurerm)Azure AD / Entra IDWorkload IdentityAzure MonitorPrometheusGrafanaAzure Key Vault CSIHelmArgoCD

Results

We publish results only when a client has approved them. See how we publish case studies and a sample report.

FAQ

Should I use Azure CNI or kubenet?
Azure CNI (or Azure CNI Overlay) for most production workloads. It gives pods routable IP addresses within the VNet, enabling direct pod-to-pod communication and Azure Private Link integration. Kubenet is a simpler option for small dev/test clusters with IP constraints, but check the current Microsoft guidance on its support status.
What is AKS Workload Identity?
Workload Identity replaces the deprecated AAD Pod Identity. It lets pods federate with Azure AD using OIDC to acquire short-lived tokens for Azure services (Key Vault, Storage, SQL) without managing service principal credentials.
How do AKS upgrades differ from EKS?
AKS also supports a limited set of recent Kubernetes minor versions, so regular upgrades are needed; check the AKS support policy for current details. The key difference is that node pool upgrades on AKS use a surge upgrade strategy where new nodes are provisioned before old ones are drained, similar to AWS managed node groups.
What VM SKU should I use for my node pools?
For general workloads, D-series VMs offer a balanced CPU-to-memory ratio. For memory-intensive workloads, consider E-series. For burstable, cost-sensitive workloads, consider B-series. We size based on your actual workload resource profiles.
Do you support AKS on Azure Government or sovereign clouds?
AKS is available in Azure Government and Azure operated by 21Vianet, with some feature differences from public Azure. We can help plan deployments there; confirm the features you need are available first.

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Written by Saddique Khan, AWS & Azure Certified · Last updated October 2025