Modern applications are increasingly built using containers, which are microservices packaged with their dependencies and configurations. For this reason, many companies are either containerizing their existing applications or creating new complex applications that are composed of multiple containers.
As applications grow to span multiple containers deployed across multiple servers, operating them becomes more complex. To manage this complexity, Kubernetes, an open-source software for deploying and managing those containers at scale, provides an open source API that controls how and where those containers will run.
Kubernetes Certified Service Provider
Microsoft Services is now a Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP). The KCSP program is a pre-qualified tier of vetted service providers who have deep experience helping enterprises successfully adopt Kubernetes. The KCSP partners offer Kubernetes support, consulting, professional services, and training for organizations embarking on their Kubernetes journey.
We have trained hundreds of consultants on Kubernetes, developed a comprehensive service offering around Kubernetes, and successfully delivered Kubernetes engagements to many customers in all industries, all over the world.
Using our global reach and ecosystem, we empower organizations to put innovation into practice to deliver strategic business outcomes, maximize the value of cloud technology, and drive success through continual support.
Microsoft Services is your partner to enable your organization to leverage container capabilities and frameworks, such as Kubernetes, to adopt modern technologies to increase speed and agility while also maintaining control and good governance.
The Azure Workloads for Containers offering
We recognize a need to help you address your secure infrastructure challenges and requirements. We envision the containers infrastructure to be more than just the containers orchestration layer to include networking, storage, secrets, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
Microsoft Services has a full Kubernetes offering, called Azure Workloads for Containers. This offering is composed of several workstreams that focus on the activities and outcomes that are most relevant to our customers. These workstreams provide full flexibility to our customers as each one of them can be selected independently and customized to meet the specific needs of a given project.
Below are the details of these workstreams.
Kubernetes foundation
- Design and plan Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster and shared services.
- Implement AKS cluster and shared services.
- Deploy application on AKS.
- Test application.
- Rollout to production.
Containers migration
- Assess, design, and plan migration.
- Migrate the containers-based application(s).
- Test the migrated application(s).
- Rollout to production.
Kubernetes security hardening
- Refactor your security controls for AKS.
- Secure your CI/CD pipeline (DevSecOps).
- Harden your AKS environment to meet your compliance obligations.
- Assist with third-party security product integration.
Kubernetes threat modeling
- Build a threat model based on the AKS cluster and the apps running on it.
- Identify threats and mitigations.
- Produce clear actions to mitigate the threats.
Application containerization
- Create container image(s) for one or multiple applications.
- Test the application(s) running as container.
- Deploy the application to an AKS cluster in production.
The offering is aligned to Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure and focuses primarily on the Adopt: Innovate principle of your cloud journey for Kubernetes.
Learn more
To learn more, have a look at the Azure Workloads for Containers datasheet.