Short for Azure Kubernetes Service, a managed Kubernetes offering that gives full control of clusters and node pools. Scaling uses the cluster autoscaler and Horizontal Pod Autoscaler; user sign-in is not built in.
Also called Azure Kubernetes Service.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
AZ-305AZ-104SC-500AI-901AI-300AZ-900AI-200SC-300AZ-400DP-800ALZ
Each book explains AKS in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Full control
Gives every right over protected content, EXTRACT included, plus the ability to alter or strip the encryption. Owners and the Rights Management issuer always hold it.
- Cluster autoscaler
Scales an AKS node pool, Windows pools included, by adding or removing VMs as the demand from pods rises and falls.
- Horizontal pod autoscaler
The Kubernetes autoscaler that adjusts the number of pods in AKS; it does not scale nodes.
- Chat message roles
Labels on chat messages: instructions go under system, the person's input under user, the model's previous answers under assistant, and results returned by a called tool under tool (or function).
Related terms
- --attach-acr
Option on
az aks createoraz aks updatethat links a container registry to an AKS cluster by assigning AcrPull to the kubelet identity, so nodes can pull its images. - AKS Automatic
A way of running AKS in which nodes, scaling, security, monitoring and upgrades come preconfigured and are looked after for you. Microsoft suggests it for most new production clusters.
- AKS Standard
An AKS mode where cluster set-up, node pools, networking and upgrades are all yours to decide. That freedom means more configuration and ongoing work compared with AKS Automatic.
- API server authorized IP address ranges
AKS capability restricting who can reach the public Kubernetes API server to specified IP ranges. Existing public clusters can have it switched on.
- Application Gateway for Containers
Recent Application Gateway-based option for load balancing and ingress on AKS, offered as an alternative to AGIC.
- Application Gateway Ingress Controller
Add-on for AKS that reads Kubernetes Ingress resources and sets up an Application Gateway, WAF v2 included, to match them.
- Application routing add-on
Managed NGINX ingress for AKS, deployed and run as an add-on, integrated with Azure DNS and with certificates held in Key Vault. Its NGINX version is supported only until the end of November 2026, after which the Gateway API version takes over.
- az aks
Azure CLI commands for managing AKS. For example,
az aks install-cliinstalls kubectl, while runningaz aks updateoraz aks nodepool updatewith--enable-cluster-autoscaler --min-count --max-countenables autoscaling.