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Microsoft Previews Azure Arc Enabled Kubernetes
Microsoft's Azure cloud is featured front-and-center at the company's Build developer conference being held this week, highlighted by the announcement of an Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes preview.
This builds on the functionality of Azure Arc, announced last November and described then as "a new tool that lets enterprises use Azure to manage their data on the Azure cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or the Google Cloud -- or any combination thereof. There's also support for Kubernetes clusters and edge infrastructure, as well as on-premises Windows and Linux servers."
Today, Microsoft said: "In November 2019, we announced the preview of Azure Arc, a set of technologies that unlocks new hybrid scenarios for customers by bringing Azure services and management to any infrastructure across datacenters, edge, and multi-cloud. Based on the feedback and excitement of all the customers in the private preview, we are able to deliver Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes in preview to our customers. With this, anyone can use Azure Arc to connect and configure any Kubernetes cluster across customer datacenters, edge locations, and multi-cloud."
Now support for Kubernetes distributions certified by Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) comes out-of-the-box.
[Click on image for larger view.] Azure Arc (source: Microsoft).
Supported scenarios for the preview -- supported in the East US and West Europe regions -- include:
- Connecting Kubernetes running outside of Azure for inventory, grouping, and tagging
- Deploy applications and apply configuration using GitOps-based configuration management
- Use Azure Monitor for containers to view and monitor your clusters
- Apply policies using Azure Policy for Kubernetes
The new offering features an operating model based on the "single-pane-of-glass" approach to help organizations manage their Kubernetes clusters deployed across multiple locations with cloud tools like Azure Policy, Azure Monitor, and Azure Resource Graph. "By bringing every system into Azure Arc, it's much easier to establish clear roles and responsibilities for team members based on a clear separation of concerns without sacrificing visibility and access," Microsoft said.
More information is available here, and official Microsoft Azure Arc samples are available on GitHub.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.