Dapr on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

This how-to guide combines three Dapr docs articles and explains how to run Dapr apps on Azure Kubernetes Service. You don't need to follow the three original articles, as this guide contains all the steps necessary.

In this guide:

• An AKS cluster will be created.
• Dapr will be installed on the cluster.
• Redis will be installed as the state store.
• Two Dapr applications will be deployed to the cluster.

The NodeJS application has a neworder POST endpoint that persists order IDs, and an order GET endpoint to retrieve the latest order ID.

The Python application creates the order IDs and calls the neworder endpoint of the NodeJS service in a continuous loop.

Prerequisites

• Azure account with rights to create resources
• Docker
• kubectl
• helm
• Azure CLI
• Dapr CLI
• Optional: VSCode with REST client

1. Create an AKS cluster

1. Login to Azure using the CLI:

   az login

2. Set the default subscription:

   az account set --subscription <subscription-id>

3. Create a resource group:

   az group create --name <resource-group-name> --location <location>

   Example

   az group create --name dapr-aks-rg --location westeurope

4. Create an AKS cluster:

   az aks create --resource-group <resource-group-name> --name <cluster-name> --node-count 2 --enable-addons http_application_routing --generate-ssh-keys

   Example

   az aks create --resource-group dapr-aks-rg --name dapr-aks --node-count 2 --enable-addons http_application_routing --generate-ssh-keys

5. Get the access credentials for the AKS cluster:

   az aks get-credentials --resource-group <resource-group-name> --name <cluster-name>

   Example

   az aks get-credentials --resource-group dapr-aks-rg --name dapr-aks

6. Verify the connection to the cluster:

   kubectl cluster-info

   Expected response:

   Kubernetes control plane is running at <CONTROL_PLANE_URL>
   addon-http-application-routing-nginx-ingress is running at <INGRESS_URL>:80 <INGRESS_URL>:443
   CoreDNS is running at <CONTROL_PLANE_URL>/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy
   Metrics-server is running at <CONTROL_PLANE_URL>/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/https:metrics-server:/proxy

7. Verify the two nodes are deployed:

   kubectl get nodes

   Expected response:

   NAME                                STATUS   ROLES   AGE   VERSION
   aks-nodepool1-27324113-vmss000000   Ready    agent   20h   v1.24.9
   aks-nodepool1-27324113-vmss000001   Ready    agent   20h   v1.24.9

2. Setup Dapr on AKS

1. Initialize Dapr on the provisioned AKS cluster:

   dapr init --kubernetes --wait

   Expected response:

   Making the jump to hyperspace...
   Container images will be pulled from Docker Hub
   Deploying the Dapr control plane to your cluster...
   Success! Dapr has been installed to namespace dapr-system. To verify, run `dapr status -k' in your terminal.

2. Verify the Dapr services are running:

   dapr status -k

   Expected response:

   NAME                   NAMESPACE    HEALTHY  STATUS   REPLICAS  VERSION  AGE  CREATED
   dapr-sidecar-injector  dapr-system  True     Running  1         1.10.4   1m   2023-03-21 11:04.03
   dapr-sentry            dapr-system  True     Running  1         1.10.4   1m   2023-03-21 11:04.03
   dapr-operator          dapr-system  True     Running  1         1.10.4   1m   2023-03-21 11:04.03
   dapr-placement-server  dapr-system  True     Running  1         1.10.4   1m   2023-03-21 11:04.03
   dapr-dashboard         dapr-system  True     Running  1         0.12.0   1m   2023-03-21 11:04.03

   Ensure that all services are healthy and running before continuing.

3. Add a Redis State Store

1. Add a reference to the bitnami Redis Helm chart:

   helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami

   Expected response:

   "bitnami" has been added to your repositories

2. Update Helm:

   helm repo update

   Expected response:

   Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
   ...Successfully got an update from the "bitnami" chart repository
   Update Complete. ⎈Happy Helming!⎈

3. Install Redis:

   helm install redis bitnami/redis --set image.tag=6.2

   Expected response:

   NAME: redis
   LAST DEPLOYED: Tue Mar 21 11:40:28 2023
   NAMESPACE: default
   STATUS: deployed
   REVISION: 1
   TEST SUITE: None
   NOTES:
   CHART NAME: redis
   CHART VERSION: 17.8.7
   APP VERSION: 7.0.10
   
   ** Please be patient while the chart is being deployed **
   
   Redis can be accessed on the following DNS names from within your cluster:
   
   redis-master.default.svc.cluster.local for read/write operations (port 6379)
   redis-replicas.default.svc.cluster.local for read-only operations (port 6379)
   ...

4. Verify the Redis pods are running:

   kubectl get pods

   Expected response:

   NAME               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   redis-master-0     1/1     Running   0          13m
   redis-replicas-0   1/1     Running   0          13m
   redis-replicas-1   1/1     Running   0          12m
   redis-replicas-2   1/1     Running   0          11m

5. Ensure you are in the root directory of this repo and run:

   kubectl apply -f ./resources/redis.yaml

   Expected response:

   component.dapr.io/statestore created

4. Deploy the Node app

1. Ensure you're in the root of the repository and apply the Node app configuration to deploy the Node app:

   kubectl apply -f ./resources/node.yaml

   Expected response:

   service/nodeapp created
   deployment.apps/nodeapp created

2. Watch the status of the deployment:

   kubectl rollout status deploy/nodeapp

   This should eventually result in:

   deployment "nodeapp" successfully rolled out

3. Get the external IP of the service:

   kubectl get svc nodeapp

   Expected response:

   NAME      TYPE           CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)        AGE
   nodeapp   LoadBalancer   <INTERNAL_IP>   <EXTERNAL_IP>   80:31198/TCP   49m

4. Verify the service is running using curl or a REST client:

   curl http://<EXTERNAL_IP>/ports

   Expected response:

   {"DAPR_HTTP_PORT":"3500","DAPR_GRPC_PORT":"50001"}

5. Submit an order to the app using curl or a REST client:

   curl --request POST --data "@sample.json" --header Content-Type:application/json http://<EXTERNAL_IP>/neworder

6. Confirm that the order ID is persisted using curl or a REST client:

   curl http://<EXTERNAL_IP>/order

   Expected response:

   { "orderId": "42" }

5. Deploy the Python app

1. Ensure you're in the root of the repository and apply the Node app configuration to deploy the Python app:

   kubectl apply -f ./resources/python.yaml

   Expected response:

   deployment.apps/pythonapp created

2. Watch the status of the deployment:

   kubectl rollout status deploy/pythonapp

   This should eventually result in:

   deployment "pythonapp" successfully rolled out

3. Follow the logs of the Node.js app:

   kubectl logs --selector=app=node -c node -f

   Expected response:

   Got a new order! Order ID: 44
   Successfully persisted state for Order ID: 44
   Got a new order! Order ID: 45
   Successfully persisted state for Order ID: 45
   Got a new order! Order ID: 46
   Successfully persisted state for Order ID: 46
   ...

4. Confirm that the latest order ID is persisted using curl or a REST client:

   curl http://<EXTERNAL_IP>/order

Dashboard

1. To access the Dapr dashboard, run the following command:

   dapr dashboard -k

   Expected response:

   Dapr dashboard found in namespace: dapr-system
   Dapr dashboard available at http://localhost:8080

2. Explore the dashboard to drill down into the applications, components, and services.

3. If you want manage multiple Dapr clusters, have fail-safe upgrades/downgrades, seamless root certificate rotations, and recommendations on your Dapr configuration, then Diagrid Conductor would be an interesting option.

6. Clean-up

Follow these steps to remove all the apps, components and cloud resources created in this how-to guide.

1. Navigate to the resources folder and run this command to delete the services and state resources:

   kubectl delete -f .

   Expected response:

   service "nodeapp" deleted
   deployment.apps "nodeapp" deleted
   service "pythonapp" deleted
   deployment.apps "pythonapp" deleted
   component.dapr.io "statestore" deleted

2. Delete the AKS cluster:

   az aks delete --name <CLUSTER_NAME> --resource-group <RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME>

   Example

   az aks delete --name dapr-aks --resource-group dapr-aks-rg

Resources

1. Setup an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.
2. Tutorial: Configure state store and pub/sub message broker
3. Hello Kubernetes

More information

Read more about hosting Dapr on Kubernetes on the Dapr docs site.

Any questions or comments about this sample? Join the Dapr discord and post a message the #kubernetes channel. Have you made something with Dapr? Post a message in the #show-and-tell channel, we love to see your creations!