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Automated Deployments for Azure Kubernetes Service (Preview)

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Automated deployments simplify the process of setting up a GitHub Action and creating an automated pipeline for your code releases to your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster. Once connected, every new commit will kick off the pipeline, resulting in your application being updated.

Important

AKS preview features are available on a self-service, opt-in basis. Previews are provided "as is" and "as available," and they're excluded from the service-level agreements and limited warranty. AKS previews are partially covered by customer support on a best-effort basis. As such, these features aren't meant for production use. For more information, see the following support articles:

Note

Private clusters are currently not supported.

Prerequisites

  • A GitHub account
  • An AKS cluster
  • An Azure Container Registry (ACR)
  • An application to deploy

Configure an automated deployment

In the Azure portal, navigate to the resource group containing the AKS cluster you want to deploy the application to.

Select your AKS cluster, and then select Automated deployments (preview) on the left blade. Upon selecting Create, you'll be presented with two options. If you have an application that isn't yet containerized, you can select Automatically containerize and deploy to allow Azure to take care of the process for you. If you already have a containerized application, select Deploy an application.

The automated deployments screen in the Azure portal. 'Create' has been selected, showing the options for already containerized applications and applications that aren't yet containerized.

Name your workflow and click Authorize to connect your Azure account with your GitHub account. After your accounts are linked, choose which repository and branch you would like to create the GitHub Action for.

  • GitHub: Authorize and select the repository for your GitHub account.

    The authorize and repository selection screen.

Next, follow along with the section below that relates to the option you chose.

Automatically containerize and deploy an application to your AKS cluster

Fill out the fields, providing details about your application that will be used to automatically generate deployment artifacts.

Screenshot of the Azure portal form for artifact generation.

Proceed to review and verify the automated deployment.

Deploy an already containerized application to your AKS cluster

Pick your dockerfile and your ACR and image.

The image selection screen.

Determine whether you'll deploy with Helm or regular Kubernetes manifests. Once decided, pick the appropriate deployment files from your repository and decide which namespace you want to deploy into.

The deployment details screen.

Proceed to review and verify the automated deployment.

Review and verify the automated deployment

  1. When finished, select Next: Deployment details and Next: Review, and review your deployment. Finally, select Next: Deploy to finish the creation of the automated deployment.

  2. Click view pull request to see your GitHub Action.

    The final screen of the deployment process. The view pull request button is highlighted.

  3. Merge the pull request to kick off the GitHub Action and deploy your application.

    The pull request page in GitHub. The merge pull request button is highlighted.

  4. Once your application is deployed, go back to automated deployments to see your history.

    The history screen in Azure portal, showing all the previous automated deployments.

Clean up resources

You can remove any related resources that you created when you don't need them anymore individually or by deleting the resource group to which they belong. To delete your automated deployment, navigate to the automated deployment dashboard and select ..., then select delete and confirm your action.

Next steps

You can modify these GitHub Actions to meet the needs of your team by opening them up in an editor like Visual Studio Code and changing them as you see fit.

Learn more about GitHub Actions for Kubernetes.