Set up development environment for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) deployment

This article is part of the series  Deploying an app to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). In this article I am going over the set up steps to prepare for deploying an application to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters.  

I am using Windows 10 Enterprise. I have Hyper-V installed in the system. Some of the components must already be present in Windows system. 

I have installed the stable release of Docker for windows edge edition so that I can use Kubernetes for orchestration. The installation media can be obtained from Docker Hub

Once installed docker, ensure the WSL 2 is also installed by executing the following in powershell window running as admin:  

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName $("VirtualMachinePlatform", "Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux")

This may require computer restart and after that Docker should already be running, if not start the Docker for Windows. 

In the setting of Docker Desktop, check ‘Enable Kubernetes’ and check ‘Deploy Docker Stacks to Kubernetes by default’. 

Azure Cli is used to interact with AKS clusters. Since I am going to interact with Azure, I must also have Azure Cli installed in my machine. Instruction to install Azure cli is at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/install-azure-cli. I can verify the Azure Cli machine by executing the following command in the PowerShell window: 

az --version | select -First 1

Reference and further reading

Create a Docker image of an application

Deploy an application image to Kubernetes

Store image to the Azure Container Registry (ACR)

Deploy application image to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)