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Best practices for Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server

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APPLIES TO: Azure Database for MySQL - Single Server Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server

Important

Azure Database for MySQL single server is on the retirement path. We strongly recommend that you upgrade to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server. For more information about migrating to Azure Database for MySQL flexible server, see What's happening to Azure Database for MySQL Single Server?

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) provides a managed Kubernetes cluster you can use in Azure. Consider the following options when using AKS and Azure Database for MySQL flexible server together to create an application.

Create the database before creating the AKS cluster

Azure Database for MySQL has two deployment options:

  • Single Server
  • Flexible Server

Single Server supports a single availability zone and Flexible Server supports multiple availability zones. AKS on the other hand also supports enabling single or multiple availability zones. Creating the database server first to see the availability zone the server is in and creating the AKS clusters in the same availability zone can improve application performance by reducing networking latency.

Use Accelerated networking

Use accelerated networking-enabled underlying VMs in your AKS cluster. When accelerated networking is enabled on a VM, there's lower latency, reduced jitter, and decreased CPU utilization on the VM. Learn more about how accelerated networking works, the supported OS versions, and supported VM instances for Linux.

From November 2018, AKS supports accelerated networking on those supported VM instances. Accelerated networking is enabled by default on new AKS clusters that use those VMs.

You can confirm whether your AKS cluster has accelerated networking:

  1. Go to the Azure portal and select your AKS cluster.
  2. Select the Properties tab.
  3. Copy the name of the Infrastructure Resource Group.
  4. Use the portal search bar to locate and open the infrastructure resource group.
  5. Select a VM in that resource group.
  6. Go to the VM's Networking tab.
  7. Confirm whether Accelerated networking is 'Enabled.'

Or through the Azure CLI using the following two commands:

az aks show --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myAKSCluster --query "nodeResourceGroup"

The output is the generated resource group that AKS creates containing the network interface. Take the "nodeResourceGroup" name and use it in the next command. EnableAcceleratedNetworking is either true or false.

az network nic list --resource-group nodeResourceGroup -o table

Use Azure premium fileshare

Use Azure premium fileshare for persistent storage that can be used by one or many pods, and can be dynamically or statically provisioned. Azure premium fileshare gives you best performance for your application if you expect large number of I/O operations on the file storage. To learn more, see How to enable Azure Files.

Next steps

Create an AKS cluster by using the Azure CLI, using Azure PowerShell, or using the Azure portal.