Hello friends,
The AKS on Azure Stack HCI October update is available just in time for Ignite! You can find us at Ignite in the following sessions:
- Bring Azure Kubernetes Services to a Hybrid Environment - November 3 @ 11:30 AM - 12:20 PM PST
- Ask the Experts: Bring Azure Kubernetes Services to a Hybrid Environment - November 3 @ 1:30 PM - 2:00 PM PST
- On demand - What’s new and what’s next for running Azure Kubernetes Service on-premises
As always, you can also evaluate AKS-HCI any time by registering here. If you do not have the hardware handy to evaluate AKS on Azure Stack HCI you can follow our guide for evaluating AKS-HCI inside an Azure VM: https://aka.ms/aks-hci-evalonazure.
And now for the October update details; with this update we are bringing in the following changes:
Support for Windows Server 2022 as the AKS on Azure Stack HCI host OS
Last month we announced that Windows Server 2022 is now generally available. I'm happy to share that, starting with the October release, AKS on Azure Stack HCI is fully supported on Windows Server 2022 hosts. We will also continue to support Azure Stack HCI and Windows Server 2019.
Proxy configuration available in Windows Admin Center
We know many of you have network environments with proxy servers and also like using Windows Admin Center as the easiest path to install AKS on Azure Stack HCI. In this release, we have added support for configuring credential-based proxies through Windows Admin Center. Certificate support through Windows Admin Center will be coming in a future release but is supported via PowerShell.
New node pool configurations available in Windows Admin Center and better AKS alignment for node pools
We’re continuing to improve node pool support as we hear more from customers (thank you!) and add more experiences for managing node pools. In September, we added support for applying taints to node pools and the ability to set a max pod count via PowerShell. In the October update, those controls are available in the Windows Admin Center so you can easily customize node pools with a friendly user interface; we also made sure taints persist through upgrade.
In addition to these new features, we changed some of our node pool default values to align more closely with AKS. The default node pool OS type is now Linux and the default node pool size is now 1 rather than 0. We also fixed a particularly annoying bug; in September an invalid taint value would cause node pool creation to hang. In this release, invalid taint values error appropriately.
Easy set-up for Arc Data services and App services on your Arc connected AKS-HCI clusters
We were seeing an issue where AKS-HCI clusters connected to Arc using Enable-AksHciArcConnection could not use Data Services or App services without extra work. This is no longer a problem starting with the October release. Starting in October, Arc connected AKS-HCI clusters include agents required to use Data Services and App services by default (clusterconnect-agent and kube-aad-proxy, if you're curious).
Database as a Service Whitepaper
Teams across Microsoft and Dell worked together this month to publish a whitepaper with the reference architecture for Building a Hybrid Database-as-a-Service Platform with Azure Stack HCI. The paper describes how to integrate Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI (Azure Stack HCI) with Azure Stack HCI running Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI (AKS-HCI). Using those building blocks, you can use Azure Arc-enabled data services include Azure SQL Managed Instance and Azure PostgreSQL Hyperscale and run on the AKS-HCI workload clusters. The data services provide the self-provisioning, elasticity, and always current feature set required of a managed hybrid cloud database service.
October documentation updates
In terms of our AKS on Azure Stack HCI documentation, in October we published 6 new pages in the docs and updated 26 others.
New documentation this month includes:
- How to use new Windows Admin Center functionality introduces in October
- How to use maximum pods and taints when configuring node pools in Windows Admin Center.
- Instructions for installing PowerShell modules using a proxy server.
- How to create pods, deployments, and DaemonSets.
We also spent some time making Troubleshooting guides easier to find by grouping topics under top level headings like "installation issues and errors" or "Upgrade issues"; grouping all known issues and common troubleshooting topics in one page was getting unmanageable. We also added several troubleshooting topics we've see this month including:
Once you have downloaded and installed the AKS on Azure Stack HCI October 2021 Update – you can report any issues you encounter and track future feature work on our GitHub Project at https://github.com/Azure/aks-hci. And, if you do not have the hardware handy to evaluate AKS on Azure Stack HCI you can follow our guide for evaluating AKS-HCI inside an Azure VM: https://aka.ms/aks-hci-evalonazure.
I look forward to hearing from you all!
Cheers,
Sarah
