In this talk, Nico will introduce you to the Azure Service Operator project. The Azure Service Operator allows you to manage your Azure resources with a cloud-native approach using a Kubernetes Controllers and Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs). We will show you how Azure Service Operator works and share how customers and partners use it to take their Azure infrastructure management to the next level. Get insights into how Azure Service Operator can help you to package your application with its infrastructure dependencies, how you can use a GitOps approach to manage your Azure infrastructure, or how Azure Service Operator allows you to create your own composable abstraction to build your own implementations and self-service solutions. Walk away and know everything you need to know to successfully provision your Azure resources with Azure Service Operator.

1. Azure Service Operator
Provision Your Resources in a Cloud-Native Way
Azure Developer Community Day 2020

2. Nico Meisenzahl
• Senior Cloud & DevOps Consultant at white duck
• Microsoft MVP, GitLab Hero & Docker Community
Leader
• Container, Kubernetes, Cloud-Native & DevOps
© white duck GmbH 2020
Phone: +49 8031 230159 0
Email: nico.meisenzahl@whiteduck.de
Twitter: @nmeisenzahl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicomeisenzahl
Blog: https://meisenzahl.org

3. Agenda
• what is Azure Service Operator?
• bundle your app with its infrastructure
• manage your infrastructure with GitOps
© white duck GmbH 2020

4. Azure Service Operator (ASO)
• “…helps you provision Azure resources and connect your
applications to them from within Kubernetes.”
• open-source project by Microsoft Azure
• still pretty new
• 250 stars, 48 Contributors
• 3150 commit, first one in July 2019
• first use case was a self-service portal for an enterprise
customer
• Monthly community call
© white duck GmbH 2020

5. ASO – how it works
• Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) for each of the
Azure services
• e.g. ResourceGroup, RedisCache, CosmosDB, …
• A Kubernetes controller that watches for changes of the
CRDs and then acting on them
• creates, update, delete the Azure resources
© white duck GmbH 2020

6. ASO - technical details
• can be installed via Helm Chart on any Kubernetes
Cluster
• requires
• Cert-Manager
• Service Principal or Managed Identity (requires AKS)
• Azure AD Pod Identity (part of ASO, requires AKS)
• Controller is based on Kubebuilder
© white duck GmbH 2020

7. ASO – GitHub project
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8. Demo: Create a first Azure resource
© white duck GmbH 2020

9. Demo: Bundle your app with its infrastructure
• combine app and infrastructure in one deployment
• inject secrets & connections strings via auto-generated
secrets
© white duck GmbH 2020

10. Demo: Manage your infrastructure with GitOps
• GitOps?
• Git as the single source of truth
• Push vs pull pipeline
• tools like Argo CD & Flux CD
can help
© white duck GmbH 2020

11. More on ASO
• detailed blog post on ASO
• https://medium.com/01001101/azure-service-operator-manage-
your-azure-resources-with-kubernetes-69f49d9dbbc5
• Cloud Native Club - ASO episode (Dec 10)
• https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/techwiese/cloud-native-
community-blog/neue-cloud-native-club-folgen-open-service-
mesh-und-azure-service-operator.aspx
© white duck GmbH 2020

12. Questions?
Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/nmeisenzahl
Demo: https://github.com/nmeisenzahl/aso-fluxcd-sample
Nico Meisenzahl (Senior Cloud & DevOps Consultant)
Phone: +49 8031 230159 0
Email: nico.meisenzahl@whiteduck.de
Twitter: @nmeisenzahl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicomeisenzahl
Blog: https://meisenzahl.org
© white duck GmbH 2020