With Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, Kubernetes clusters located either inside or outside Azure can be attached and configured. When a Kubernetes cluster is connected to Azure Arc, it will:
- Appear in the Azure portal with an Azure Resource Manager ID and a managed identity.
- Be placed in an Azure subscription and resource group.
- Receive tags just like any other Azure resource.
Once Kubernetes clusters managed by Azure Resource Manage are onboarded into Azure Arc, IT administrators can automate creating the same configuration across all Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters. This helps to standardize the configuration of Kubernetes, at-scale across the enterprise. Azure policy shall then be used to standardize baseline configurations to be applied across the entire inventory of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters. Through Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Kubernetes clusters can be integrated with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to provide role-based assignments in Azure to control authorized Connect Kubernetes running outside of Azure for inventory, grouping, and tagging.
Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes supports the following scenarios for the connected clusters:
- Connect Kubernetes running outside of Azure for inventory, grouping, and tagging.
- Deploy applications and apply configuration using GitOps-based configuration management.
- View and monitor your clusters using Azure Monitor for containers.
- Enforce threat protection using Microsoft Defender for Kubernetes.
- Apply policy definitions using Azure Policy for Kubernetes.
- Use Azure Active Directory for authentication and authorization checks on your cluster.
- Securely access your Kubernetes cluster from anywhere without opening inbound port on firewall using Cluster Connect.
- Deploy Open Service Mesh on top of your cluster for observability and policy enforcement on service-to-service interactions.
- Deploy machine learning workloads using Azure Machine Learning for Kubernetes clusters.
- Create custom locations as target locations for deploying Azure Arc-enabled Data Services (SQL Managed Instances, PostgreSQL Hyperscale.), App Services on Azure Arc (including web, function, and logic apps) and Event Grid on Kubernetes.
For more detailed information on Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, see Microsoft Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes documentation.