AKS Creation Guide

Intro

In this guide, we’ll create a minimal Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster specifically designed for CKAD practice.

The goal is to:

• keep costs low

• focus on Kubernetes, not Azure features

• have a real cluster for hands-on learning

Prerequisites

Required tools

• Azure Subscription

• Azure CLI installed

• kubectl

$ az version
{
  "azure-cli": "2.86.0",
  "azure-cli-core": "2.86.0",
  "azure-cli-telemetry": "1.1.0",
  "extensions": {
    "ml": "2.42.0",
    "ssh": "2.0.8"
  }
}

$ kubectl version --client
Client Version: v1.36.0
Kustomize Version: v5.8.1

Create AKS

Go to: Azure Portal → Create a resource → Kubernetes Service

Step 1: Basics

Field	Value
Subscription	<your_subscription>
Resource Group	<your_resource_group>
Cluster preset configuration	Dev/Test
Cluster Name	aks-ckad
Region	(Europe) West Europe
Kubernetes version	Latest stable
Availability zones	None
Pricing tier	Free
Kubernetes version	1.34.8 (default)

Step 2: Node Pools

Keep it cheap/simple

Setting	Value
Node size	Standard_D2Is_v5
Node count	2-5
Scale method	Autoscale

Step 3: Authentication

Just leave default - System assigned managed identity

Step 4: Networking

Keep defaults

Step 5: Monitoring

Disable for cost + simplicity:

• Disable Container Insights

• Disable Prometheus metrics

Step 6: Review + Create

Click Create and wait 3-5 minutes

Connect to the cluster

After deployment, go to Cloud Shell

az login --use-device-code
Cloud Shell is automatically authenticated under the initial account signed-in with. Run 'az login' only if you need to use a different account
To sign in, use a web browser to open the page https://login.microsoft.com/device and enter the code XXXX to authenticate.

Retrieving tenants and subscriptions for the selection...
The following tenants don't contain accessible subscriptions. Use `az login --allow-no-subscriptions` to have tenant level access.


az aks get-credentials \
 --resource-group db-app-lab-rg \
 --name aks-ckad \
 --overwrite-existing
Merged "aks-ckad" as current context in /home/dbeniteza/.kube/config

Validate cluster

kubectl get nodes
NAME                                STATUS   ROLES    AGE   VERSION
aks-agentpool-38340810-vmss000000   Ready    <none>   17h   v1.34.8
aks-agentpool-38340810-vmss000001   Ready    <none>   17h   v1.34.8

Test a simple pod

kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx
deployment.apps/nginx created

kubectl expose deployment nginx --port=80 --type=NodePort
service/nginx exposed

kubectl get svc
NAME         TYPE        CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.0.0.1     <none>        443/TCP        17h
nginx        NodePort    10.0.74.32   <none>        80:30319/TCP   14s

kubectl get all
NAME                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/nginx-66686b6766-5k6j9   1/1     Running   0          5m3s

NAME                 TYPE        CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
service/kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.0.0.1     <none>        443/TCP        17h
service/nginx        NodePort    10.0.74.32   <none>        80:30319/TCP   4m45s

NAME                    READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/nginx   1/1     1            1           5m3s

NAME                               DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/nginx-66686b6766   1         1         1       5m3s

Cleanup

kubectl delete deployment nginx
deployment.apps "nginx" deleted from default namespace

kubectl delete svc nginx
service "nginx" deleted from default namespace

kubectl get all
NAME                 TYPE        CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)   AGE
service/kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.0.0.1     <none>        443/TCP   17