AKS Networking and Ingress

Networking is one of the most critical — and most complex — aspects of running Kubernetes in production. AKS offers multiple networking models, service types, and ingress options. This lesson covers how traffic flows in and out of your cluster, how pods communicate, and how to expose services to the internet securely.

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Network Models

AKS supports two primary network plugins:

Azure CNI (Container Network Interface)

Every pod gets an IP address from the Azure virtual network subnet. Pods are first-class citizens on the VNet.

Aspect	Detail
Pod IPs	Assigned from the VNet subnet
Pod-to-VM communication	Direct — pods and VMs are on the same network
IP consumption	High — requires enough IPs for all pods + nodes
Performance	Best — no overlay encapsulation
Best for	Production clusters that need VNet integration

az aks create \
  --resource-group rg-aks \
  --name my-aks-cluster \
  --network-plugin azure \
  --vnet-subnet-id /subscriptions/.../subnets/aks-subnet \
  --service-cidr 10.0.0.0/16 \
  --dns-service-ip 10.0.0.10

Azure CNI Overlay