Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Automatic

🔹 Feature: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Automatic  

🔹 What It Does: If Container Apps don’t fit your scenario and AKS feels like too much operational effort, try AKS Automatic — the almost hands-free Kubernetes experience where everything is preconfigured according to Microsoft’s best practices.

✅ What is it giving you:

✅ Azure handles cluster setup.

✅ Azure handles node management.

✅ Azure handles scaling.

✅ Azure handles security defaults.

✅ Settings follow AKS well-architected recommendations.

✅ Compute is allocated dynamically for your workloads.

✅ Clusters come preconfigured for production.

✅ Node pools are fully managed.

✅ Resources auto-allocate and auto-scale per workload needs.

✅ Pods are bin-packed to improve utilization.

✅ Built-in best practices and operations

✅ Clusters have hardened default security settings.

✅ Nodes and cluster components are patched automatically.

✅ You can use planned maintenance schedules.

✅ Node pools are managed with Node Autoprovisioning.

✅ Nodes are created based on workload requests.

✅ HPA, KEDA, and VPA are enabled.

✅ Worker nodes auto-repair when unhealthy.

✅ Clusters are automatically upgraded.

✅ Upgrades stop if deprecated Kubernetes APIs are detected.

✅ You can go from image to deployed app in minutes.

✅ Automated deployments can generate manifests and CI/CD workflows.

✅ Managed Prometheus metrics are configured by default.

✅ Container Insights logs are configured by default.

✅ Azure Monitor Dashboards with Grafana are built in.

✅ Container network observability can be enabled via Advanced Container Networking

✅ Standard tier cluster is preconfigured.

✅ Up to 5,000 nodes are supported.

✅ Cluster uptime SLA is included.

✅ Pod readiness SLA is included (99.9% within 5 minutes).

✅ Azure RBAC for Kubernetes authorization is preconfigured.

✅ API server VNet integration is enabled by default.

✅ Workload identity with Microsoft Entra Workload ID is enabled.

✅ OIDC cluster issuer is enabled.

✅ Image cleaner removes unused images with vulnerabilities.

✅ Deployment safeguards enforce best practices via Azure Policy.

✅ Managed namespaces are available for preconfigured quotas and policies.

✅ Managed VNet uses Azure CNI Overlay powered by Cilium by default.

✅ Managed NGINX ingress is preconfigured via app routing.

✅ Ingress integrates with Azure DNS and Azure Key Vault.

✅ Managed NAT gateway egress is preconfigured for scalable outbound flows.

✅ Istio-based service mesh add-on is available.

🌐 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/intro-aks-automatic