Deploying Microservices to Azure Kubernetes Services

Introduction

This article is the third part of series covering planning, solutioning, designing, developing, deploying and protecting Microservices deployed to Azure Kubernetes Services -

• Planning and Solutioning Microservices using Domain Driven Design
• Developing Microservices using .Net 5
• Deploying-Microservices to Azure Kubernetes Services
• Inter Microservices communication using Azure Service Bus
• Using Redis cache to increase performance during inter Microservices communicaiton
• Protecting Microservices inside Azure Kubernetes Services using Azure API Management
• Authenticate Microservices inside Azure Kubernetes Services using Azure Active Directory

This article covers following things –

• Add Dockerfile to our Employee Microservice project for creating Docker image
• Create Azure Container Registry that will be used to store Docker images of our Microservices
• Create Azure DevOps pipeline connecting GitHub code and deploying the Docker images in Azure Container Registry
• Setup Kubernetes environment using Azure Kubernetes Services where we will deploy our Microservices
• Create Ingress Controller that acts as all-in-one Load Balancer, Cache, API Gateway, and WAF for our Kubernetes environment
• Create Workloads in AKS
• Create Services to access our Workloads
• Create Ingress routes that our Ingress Controller will use to access the Services
• Add another MasterData Microservice using similar steps as Employee Microservice

Add Dockerfile to Employee project

• Add Docker support to Coral.Employee.Api project and select Linux as Target OS

  

• Below is the code for Dockerfile

    #See https://aka.ms/containerfastmode to understand how Visual Studio uses this Dockerfile to build your images for faster debugging.
    
    FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspnet:5.0 AS base
    WORKDIR /app
    EXPOSE 80
    EXPOSE 443
    
    FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0 AS build
    WORKDIR /src
    COPY ["Employee/Coral.Employee.Api/Coral.Employee.Api.csproj", "Employee/Coral.Employee.Api/"]
    COPY ["Employee/Coral.Employee.Service/Coral.Employee.Service.csproj", "Employee/Coral.Employee.Service/"]
    COPY ["Employee/Coral.Employee.Broker/Coral.Employee.Broker.csproj", "Employee/Coral.Employee.Broker/"]
    COPY ["Employee/Coral.Employee.Persistance/Coral.Employee.Persistance.csproj", "Employee/Coral.Employee.Persistance/"]
    COPY ["Infrastructure/Coral.Infrastructure.CrossCutting/Coral.Infrastructure.CrossCutting.csproj", "Infrastructure/Coral.Infrastructure.CrossCutting/"]
    COPY ["Employee/Coral.Employee.Domain/Coral.Employee.Domain.csproj", "Employee/Coral.Employee.Domain/"]
    RUN dotnet restore "Employee/Coral.Employee.Api/Coral.Employee.Api.csproj"
    COPY . .
    WORKDIR "/src/Employee/Coral.Employee.Api"
    RUN dotnet build "Coral.Employee.Api.csproj" -c Release -o /app/build
    
    FROM build AS publish
    RUN dotnet publish "Coral.Employee.Api.csproj" -c Release -o /app/publish
    
    FROM base AS final
    WORKDIR /app
    COPY --from=publish /app/publish .
    ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "Coral.Employee.Api.dll"]
  

Create Azure Container Registry that will be used to store Docker images of our Microservices

• Provision Azure Container Registry where we will store Docker images of Employee and other Microservices

  

• Below are the basic settings for our ACR

  

• Below is our ACR 'coralregistry' that we provisioned

  

Create Azure DevOps pipeline connecting GitHub code and deploying the Docker images in Azure Container Registry

• Create project 'Coral' in Azure DevOps

  

• Create pipeline in Azure DevOps to deploy Docker image of Employee Microservice to Azure Container Registry

  
  

  • Create new service connection to Azure from Azure DevOps

    
  
  

  • Create the pipeline for Employee Microservice

    
  
  

  • Choose Classic Editor for our pipeline

    
  
  

  • Connect to the GitHub repo

    
  
  

  • Select Docker template

    
  
  

  • Below are the options for pipeline

    
  
  

  • Add another build step to copy files for building Docker image

    
  
  

  • Specify settings for Build step

    
  
  

  • Specify settings for Publish step

    
  
  

  • Save the pipeline

    

• Run the pipeline that will deploy Docker image of Employee service to coralregistry ACR

  

Setup Kubernetes environment using Azure Kubernetes Services

• Provision a new Kubernetes cluster where we will deploy our Microservices

  

• Choose basic settings for our cluster 'coralaks'

  

Create Ingress Controller that acts as all-in-one Load Balancer, Cache, API Gateway, and WAF for our Kubernetes environment

• We will use Helm to install nginx-ingress

• Create a new namespace 'development' in Kubernetes cluster

  

• Add the ingress-nginx repository and use Helm to deploy an NGINX ingress controller

  

• Below is the full script for installing Ingress Contoller

    az aks get-credentials --resource-group coral --name coralaks
    
    # Create a namespace for your ingress resources
    kubectl create namespace development
    
    # Add the ingress-nginx repository
    helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
    
    # Use Helm to deploy an NGINX ingress controller
    helm install nginx-ingress ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \
        --namespace development \
        --set controller.replicaCount=1 \
        --set controller.nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
        --set controller.admissionWebhooks.patch.nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
        --set defaultBackend.nodeSelector."kubernetes\.io/os"=linux \
  

Create Workloads in AKS

• Create new Deployment that will deploy Employee Microservice pod

  

• Below is the full code of deployment.yaml file

    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    metadata:
      name: employeeservice-deployment  
      namespace: development
    spec:
      replicas: 1
      selector:
        matchLabels:
          app: employeeservice-pod
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: employeeservice-pod
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: employeeservice-container
            image: coralregistry.azurecr.io/employeeservice:437
            imagePullPolicy: Always
            ports:
            - containerPort: 80
  

Create Services to access our Workloads

• Create a new Cluster IP service to access Employee Microsrevice pod

  

• Below is the full code of service.yaml file

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Service
    metadata:
      name: employeeservice-service  
      namespace: development
    spec:
      type: ClusterIP
      ports:
      - port: 80
      selector:
        app: employeeservice-pod
  

Create Ingress routes that our Ingress Controller will use to access the Services,

• Create new ingress route that will be used by Ingress Controller to access the Services

  

• Below is the full code of ingress.yaml file

    apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/beta1v1
    kind: Ingress
    metadata:
      name: ingress-service
      namespace: development
      annotations:
        kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
        nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/ssl-redirect: "false"
        nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/use-regex: "true"
        nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /$2
    spec:
      rules:
      - http:
          paths:
          - path: /demo(/|$)(.*)
            pathType: Prefix
            backend:
              serviceName: employeeservice-service
              servicePort: 80
  

Add another MasterData Microservice using similar steps as Employee Microservice

• Use the same approach to implement MasterData Microservice and deploy to AKS (code is uploaded to this GitHub repository)