Prepare your Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster
Important
Azure IoT Operations Preview – enabled by Azure Arc is currently in preview. You shouldn't use this preview software in production environments.
You'll need to deploy a new Azure IoT Operations installation when a generally available release is made available. You won't be able to upgrade a preview installation.
See the Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews for legal terms that apply to Azure features that are in beta, preview, or otherwise not yet released into general availability.
An Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster is a prerequisite for deploying Azure IoT Operations Preview. This article describes how to prepare an Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster before you Deploy Azure IoT Operations Preview to an Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster to run your own workloads. This article includes guidance for both Ubuntu, Windows, and cloud environments.
Tip
If you want to deploy Azure IoT Operations and run a sample workload, see the Quickstart: Run Azure IoT Operations Preview in Github Codespaces with K3s.
Azure IoT Operations ships as a set of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes services and is intended for use with CNCF conformant Arc validated partner products. Currently, Microsoft has validated Azure IoT Operations against the following fixed-set of infrastructures and environments:
Environment | Version |
---|---|
AKS-EE on Windows 11 IoT Enterprise on a single-node AMD Ryzen-7 (8 core, 3.3 GHz), 16-GB RAM |
AksEdge-K3s-1.28.3-1.7.639.0 |
K3s on Ubuntu 22.04.2 on a single-node AMD Ryzen-7 (8 core, 3.3 GHz), 16-GB RAM |
K3s version 1.28.5 |
Important
The environments listed previously are production-like environments that Microsoft has validated. They're not the only environments that Azure IoT Operations can run on. Azure IoT Operations can run on any Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster that meets the Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes system requirements.
Prerequisites
To prepare your Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster, you need:
- Hardware that meets the system requirements.
An Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create one for free before you begin.
Azure CLI version 2.46.0 or newer installed on your development machine. Use
az --version
to check your version andaz upgrade
to update if necessary. For more information, see How to install the Azure CLI.The Azure IoT Operations extension for Azure CLI. Use the following command to add the extension or update it to the latest version:
az extension add --upgrade --name azure-iot-ops
Hardware that meets the system requirements:
- Ensure that your machine has a minimum of 10-GB RAM, 4 vCPUs, and 40-GB free disk space.
- Review the AKS Edge Essentials requirements and support matrix.
- Review the AKS Edge Essentials networking guidance.
Create a cluster
This section provides steps to prepare and Arc-enable clusters in validated environments on Linux and Windows as well as GitHub Codespaces in the cloud.
Azure Kubernetes Service Edge Essentials is an on-premises Kubernetes implementation of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) that automates running containerized applications at scale. AKS Edge Essentials includes a Microsoft-supported Kubernetes platform that includes a lightweight Kubernetes distribution with a small footprint and simple installation experience, making it easy for you to deploy Kubernetes on PC-class or "light" edge hardware.
The AksEdgeQuickStartForAio.ps1 script automates the the process of creating and connecting a cluster, and is the recommended path for deploying Azure IoT Operations on AKS Edge Essentials.
Open an elevated PowerShell window and change the directory to a working folder.
Run the following commands, replacing the placeholder values with your information:
Placeholder Value SUBSCRIPTION_ID The ID of your Azure subscription. If you don't know your subscription ID, see Find your Azure subscription. TENANT_ID The ID of your Microsoft Entra tenant. If you don't know your tenant ID, see Find your Microsoft Entra tenant. RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME The name of an existing resource group or a name for a new resource group to be created. LOCATION An Azure region close to you. For the list of currently supported Azure regions, see Supported regions. CLUSTER_NAME A name for the new cluster to be created. $url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/AKS-Edge/main/tools/scripts/AksEdgeQuickStart/AksEdgeQuickStartForAio.ps1" Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -OutFile .\AksEdgeQuickStartForAio.ps1 Unblock-File .\AksEdgeQuickStartForAio.ps1 Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force .\AksEdgeQuickStartForAio.ps1 -SubscriptionId "<SUBSCRIPTION_ID>" -TenantId "<TENANT_ID>" -ResourceGroupName "<RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME>" -Location "<LOCATION>" -ClusterName "<CLUSTER_NAME>"
If there are any issues during deployment, including if your machine reboots as part of this process, run the whole set of commands again.
Run the following commands to check that the deployment was successful:
Import-Module AksEdge Get-AksEdgeDeploymentInfo
In the output of the
Get-AksEdgeDeploymentInfo
command, you should see that the cluster's Arc status isConnected
.
Arc-enable your cluster
Connect your cluster to Azure Arc so that it can be managed remotely.
The AksEdgeQuickStartForAio.ps1 script that you ran in the previous section handled the steps to connect your cluster. You don't need to take any extra steps to Arc-enable.
Verify your cluster
To verify that your cluster is ready for Azure IoT Operations deployment, you can use the verify-host helper command in the Azure IoT Operations extension for Azure CLI. When run on the cluster host, this helper command checks connectivity to Azure Resource Manager and Microsoft Container Registry endpoints.
az iot ops verify-host
To verify that your Kubernetes cluster is now Azure Arc-enabled, run the following command:
kubectl get deployments,pods -n azure-arc
The output looks like the following example:
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/clusterconnect-agent 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/extension-manager 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/clusteridentityoperator 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/controller-manager 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/flux-logs-agent 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/cluster-metadata-operator 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/extension-events-collector 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/config-agent 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/kube-aad-proxy 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/resource-sync-agent 1/1 1 1 10m
deployment.apps/metrics-agent 1/1 1 1 10m
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/clusterconnect-agent-5948cdfb4c-vzfst 3/3 Running 0 10m
pod/extension-manager-65b8f7f4cb-tp7pp 3/3 Running 0 10m
pod/clusteridentityoperator-6d64fdb886-p5m25 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/controller-manager-567c9647db-qkprs 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/flux-logs-agent-7bf6f4bf8c-mr5df 1/1 Running 0 10m
pod/cluster-metadata-operator-7cc4c554d4-nck9z 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/extension-events-collector-58dfb78cb5-vxbzq 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/config-agent-7579f558d9-5jnwq 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/kube-aad-proxy-56d9f754d8-9gthm 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/resource-sync-agent-769bb66b79-z9n46 2/2 Running 0 10m
pod/metrics-agent-6588f97dc-455j8 2/2 Running 0 10m
Create sites
A site is a collection of Azure IoT Operations instances. Sites typically group instances by physical location and make it easier for OT users to locate and manage assets. An IT administrator creates sites and assigns Azure IoT Operations instances to them. To learn more, see What is Azure Arc site manager (preview)?.
Next steps
Now that you have an Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster, you can deploy Azure IoT Operations.