Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Reviews

I am using AKS on a Cosmos DB database. AKS is similar to AWS in stability and scalability, but when used with C#, AKS is easier to deploy and better to use because I use .NET applications.

The documentation makes it easier to deploy AKS, so it is the most valuable feature.

The onboarding process could be improved. For example, when you open Azure's main port, it is not very easy to access the servers because you need to put your mail and password, and sometimes you need to configure the authenticator. Depending on the case, this could be a problem.

I have been using AKS for two years, and I am using the latest version.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

The customer support has been good.

The initial setup was very easy.

I have not seen a return on investment since I have only used the solution in my company for two months.

The solution is not very expensive. It is expensive when used on the Cosmos DB database.

The solution has good documentation and is easy to use and deploy. AKS is a good place to start your business. I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

The most valuable features of AKS are scalability, deployability, and automation.

Configuration management and troubleshooting performance issues are difficult to solve and could be made easier. 

I have been using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for approximately one and a half years.

There are some performance issues with the stability. There is some fine-tuning needed.

I rate the stability of AKS a seven out of ten.

The solution is scalable.

Small to medium-sized businesses are best suited for AKS.

I rate the scalability of AKS a nine out of ten.

The support is excellent.

I rate the support AKS an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup can be complex and took a total of four weeks. However, the incremental deployment took a couple of days.

In the first step of implementation, we do an estimation and identify all of our independent modules and packaging needed.

I rate the initial setup of AKS a three out of ten.

The price of AKS is expensive. We pay approximately $10,000 monthly.

My advice for others is to focus more on packaging the individual models and cables before going to where the solution is situated.

I rate AKS a six out of ten.

We used the solution to integrate banking pipelines for our customers. Also, we integrated Kibana into AKS, and from there, we deployed their parts. The solution's features, like machine learning models and analytical tools, have also helped us.

The solution's valuable features include in-built volume controllers, integration, container orchestration, monitoring, PSI drivers, Github, Gitlab, CI/CD, etc.

There are a lot of features that should be included with AKS. Also, the solution is still growing; thus, many things must be improved. We are still testing the solution, but they should provide better monitoring services. Along with it, they should include in-built DR features.

We have been using the solution for two years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

We contacted the solution's customer service during the time of deployment. We also never needed the tech team's support, as the deployment is straightforward. The event architecture was required on our end; Microsoft doesn't help there. They provide basic help to establish the SaaS components.

I used Azure Virtual Desktop and Azure Migrate as well. Mostly, customers move their applications to AKS from the premise as they want active manageability of services. The other reason is credit plans. Customers prefer switching to services that offer them credit cards. Also, the pricing matters a lot. Even though the services are performing well, people opt for vendors offering a particular cloud that is low on cost.

The initial setup for testing purposes was easy. We just had to set some commands with a click, and it took around ten minutes to complete. During the final deployment, we required a code. It is a day long process.

The solution's pricing and licensing are structured on the basis of the use cases. Again, it depends on how many parts of a particular feature you require. There is a pricing calculator to get an aggregate cost based on the use cases, operating systems, storage capacity, etc. For Windows, the pricing depends on which side of the node you are using, i.e., Dual-core 4 GB RAM or Dual-core 8 GB RAM. It is possible to receive discounts on pricing with reserve incentives. In this case, it relies on how many VMs you run in the back end.

I advise others to initiate with basic services of the solution and then explore further. It is easy to maintain the solution. We can view and monitor all the processes through its monitoring feature. I rate the solution as a nine.

AKS is a new technology for deploying a solution on microservice infrastructure. Most organizations are moving to this kind of solution. Its use case is for deployment, full-layer automation, and modernization technology. We are partners with Azure and have an enterprise agreement with them. 

A valuable aspect of this solution is the management feature monitored by the cloud service provider. 

Microsoft has an application firewall but it doesn't have all the good features and there is room for enhancement. The Microsoft in-grade controller has many issues that need to be solved. It's very important for us because we use Microsoft for 90% of our work and this is currently not a complete product. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The stability is good. 

The solution is flexible in terms of scalability. 

Customer service is very good with a prompt response time. They have a dedicated team to assist with support.

The initial setup is straightforward. Even if you go through the portal deployment, or the ARM template, it's very easy. Our deployment was large and scripting was done in the data form. I demonstrated it for the team on the non-production site and the application team carried out the same deployment on the production site with the help of automation.

The infrastructure part took three days because it was a total private cluster. The application deployment took longer, probably around six weeks, due to file and database-related issues. We have an in-house team with four dedicated people that provide maintenance. We also have operational staff that manages the pass services side and troubleshooting of AKS.

I think the ROI is very good. There are a lot of savings on the OS aspect. The container doesn't require the OS, it only needs some binary to run an application and that saves a lot of money. From a company perspective, it's very convenient.  

Licensing costs are reasonable, I believe somewhere around 30% cheaper than AWS.

Until they come up with a good ingress controller, I rate this product eight out of 10. 

I use the solution for infrastructure services on platforms. It can be used for running virtual instances on Azure.

Integration and automation are the best features of the solution. It is interesting to see what it could deliver by integrating all the services.

The product should make the initial setup easier. The product should provide an online format where I can see, read, study and research it on demand.

I have been using the solution for around five years.

I don't see any stability issues with the multiple servers integrated into Azure.

Scalability is one of the top benefits when you migrate to the cloud. We can go directly from 20 users to 10,000 users.

The initial setup is complex.

Nothing in Azure is as easy as plug-and-play. Most of the time, the product is cloud-based. There are on-premise solutions for very specific cases. As a representative of cybersecurity operations, I have to do research and read the manuals. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

Our customers use the solution to develop their business applications.

The solution's dashboard integration with Kubernetes helps us manage workloads easily.

They should work on improving the solution's integration with API. They should add an option for installing open-source tools such as Kube-State-Metrics to leverage the community.

We have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is more stable than EKS. Although, we face some issues while upgrading it. I rate its stability as an eight.

Our customers have around 50-60 developers using the solution in their organizations. I rate its scalability as an eight.

The solution's customer service team resolves the technical issues accurately. But it takes a long time to reply to queries.

The solution is simple to install compared to AWS, which needs many prerequisites to follow.

The solution is expensive compared to other vendors. I rate its pricing as a five.

I have evaluated IBM Cloud, GKE, and AWS. They all are similar to AKS and have a few advantages over it. But AKS is better than them in terms of implementation, scalability, accessibility, and overall services.

The solution is excellent. But sometimes, it couldn't provide specific metrics. In addition, integrating it with Azure's metric app also fails to generate the expected results.

I rate the solution as a seven.

Our primary use case is for deploying the Docker images, which we are working on.

I have enjoyed working with all the features.

I would like to see the stability get more synchronized.

I have been working with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for the past eight or nine months.

Sometimes the cluster is just hung up for some time. Maybe the services are just in a syncing state. They are not regularly syncing it via Argo CD. These are some of the issues we have faced. We have not faced this every day, but from time to time maybe twice a month.

There is good scalability in the current environment. We have currently around one thousand using the solution.

The initial setup is complex for me.

We are using Microsoft tools and that is why we went ahead with the Microsoft company culture.

I would rate Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) an eight out of ten.

AKS is an orchestrator for containers you can manage within the Azure environment. It is the equivalent of AWS' EKS, and Google Cloud's equivalent is Kubernetes native service. AKS' main feature is that it helps you fetch, scale, and manage containers living within any sort of eco-space within Azure or other platforms to run them on demand. It provisions and scales containers on demand based on your configuration.

AKS as a service is very good when you need to leverage applications or functions with much variability in their usage because you're trying to be as efficient as you can with resources. AKS helps you distribute jobs along multiple nodes within clusters so you can handle larger loads without needing to provision additional infrastructure or set different autoscaling policies. AKS will provision and source all those containers on its own. The solution is very good when you need to scale constantly and distribute much more of the ingestion you're taking, whether through data jobs or serving up a certain application. AKS helps you scale horizontally, so you don't have to overload many requests into a larger machine, which eventually becomes costly.

One difference from Google Cloud is that AKS wants you to manage it from within the platform rather than more integratively or programmatically. But it just loses out because you have less access to it programmatically, with less technical or customizable access.

I've had very bad experiences with Microsoft's support. I rate their support somewhere around a five or a six out of ten. They do fine in assigning people to work on your cases, but their lead times for service are very slow. Even when you have critical incidents, you might be left hanging. That usually prompts you to resort to either Internet knowledge or just source yourself around the network of other Azure companies.

Neutral

We are consultants for multiple partners, so we usually adjust to whichever cloud provider they work with. In this case, we leverage Azure because the client already has an Azure infrastructure. Moving jobs for things like computing functions directly into Kubernetes is a decision that's mostly driven by how much we can manage scaling and how much we manage distributed computing. If we need a lot of flexibility on how much load our application will withstand, it's a solid move. It's so much easier than managing compute clusters, images, or provisioning infrastructure on your own. You can even make it work with other tools like TerraForm or CloudFormation. So you can set up the entire Kubernetes infrastructure without providing the resources until you get enough load. That's why Kubernetes has a strong use case overall for most modern applications and distributed processing.

Every container and elastic service on each of the clouds is very similar. Still, Azure offers an increased layer of security based on many permissions that can be handled through Active Directory. Security-wise, Azure is the better cloud and solves many of the inherent security issues that Kubernetes had originally. From there, I feel permission management is much better. The UI is simpler to understand.

I rate Azure Kubernetes Service a seven out of ten. It could be better, but it does its job very well.