Deploying Node.js & MySQL on Kubernetes Using AKS and Azure DevOps: A Practical Summary

🚀 Overview

Modern applications demand scalability, reliability, and ease of deployment. By leveraging Kubernetes on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) along with Azure DevOps pipelines, we can deploy and manage applications like Node.js (on port 3000) and MySQL (on port 3306) efficiently and with automation.

🔧 Key Components

• Kubernetes (K8s): Container orchestration tool that automates deployment, scaling, and operations of applications.

• AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service): A managed Kubernetes service from Azure that handles the complexity of cluster management.

• Azure DevOps: CI/CD platform for automating build, test, and deployment pipelines.

• Azure Container Services (ACS): An older container orchestration service from Azure, now largely replaced by AKS.

🎯 Use Case

We aim to deploy:

• A Node.js web application running on port 3000

• A MySQL database service running on port 3306

These are deployed as separate containerized services within a Kubernetes cluster managed by AKS.

✅ Benefits & Problem Solved

• Scalability: Easily scale your app up or down based on traffic using Kubernetes.

• High Availability: Replicated services ensure minimal downtime.

• Automation: Azure DevOps handles code integration, builds Docker images, pushes to Azure Container Registry (ACR), and deploys to AKS automatically.

• Seamless Integration: AKS integrates deeply with Azure services like ACR, networking, monitoring, and Active Directory.

• Environment Parity: Kubernetes ensures your dev, staging, and prod environments remain consistent.

• Security & Isolation: Services are decoupled and can be managed independently with granular access controls.

🔁 CI/CD with Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps automates:

• Building Docker images from your code

• Pushing them to ACR

• Deploying the Kubernetes manifests to AKS

• Managing versioned, repeatable deployments

This drastically reduces human error and accelerates delivery cycles.

🧱 What About ACS?

• Azure Container Services (ACS) was the earlier option for running containers in Azure.

• It supported multiple orchestrators (Kubernetes, DC/OS, Docker Swarm).

• Now deprecated, it has been superseded by AKS, which is more powerful, streamlined, and Azure-native.

🧩 Real-World Impact

This architecture is perfect for:

• Startups and SaaS products needing agile infrastructure

• Teams wanting automated deployments with built-in scalability

• Projects that need resilient, cloud-native service delivery

🏁 Conclusion

Deploying your applications on Kubernetes using AKS and Azure DevOps not only simplifies the deployment process but also enables rapid iteration, continuous delivery, and efficient resource management. It’s a modern, production-ready solution for businesses aiming to scale reliably in the cloud.