What is Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager?

Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager enables at-scale management of multiple Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters. Fleet Manager provides platform administrators with access to automated safe multi-cluster updates, intelligent Kubernetes resource placement, and a centralized location to access monitoring data for their clusters.

Fleet Manager supports the following scenarios:

• Join AKS clusters across Azure regions and subscriptions as member clusters.

• Safely and consistently apply Kubernetes version and node image upgrades across multiple clusters with update runs, attaching reusable update strategies to control the order and timing of cluster updates.

• Include optional manual or automated approvals for update groups and stages to provide more fine-grained control over when updates are applied (preview).

• Automatically trigger version upgrades when new Kubernetes or node image versions are published by defining one or more auto-upgrade profile.

• Deploy a hub cluster to enable intelligent placing of Kubernetes resources across member clusters based on cluster labels and properties using Fleet Manager cluster resource placement.

• Stage Kubernetes resources from Git repositories to Fleet Manager's hub cluster using Automated Deployments (preview).

• Load balance incoming traffic across service endpoints on multiple clusters using DNS-based load balancing (preview).

Next steps

• Conceptual overview of Fleets and member clusters.
• Conceptual overview of Update orchestration across multiple member clusters.
• Conceptual overview of Kubernetes resource placement from hub cluster to member clusters.
• Conceptual overview of DNS load balancing (preview).
• Create a fleet and join member clusters.