Install Kong Data Plane Node (Kong Gateway) on Azure Kubernetes Service - Self-Managed Hybrid

Hello Tech Enthusiasts 👋,

Continuing my journey of learning Kong Konnect, today I’ll walk you through installing a Kong Gateway node (Data Plane) on Azure Kubernetes Service.

If you’re new to Kong, I recommend checking out my previous article before proceeding Getting Started with Kong API Management.

Prerequisites

• Azure account with appropriate permission to create AKS.
• Knowledge on basic cloud components.
• Sign-up and access to Kong Konnect.
• Install Azure CLI.
• Install kubectl.
• Install Helm 3.

Instantiate Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

• Navigate to Azure Portal and search for Kubernetes Service
• Select create new and select Kubernetes Cluster

AKS Selection ☝️

AKS basic form ☝️

Review and Create AKS ☝️

AKS Deployment Completed ☝️

Connect AKS

• Ensure to install Azure CLI and Kubectl as mentioned earlier in prerequisites.
• Click connect and follow the screen to ensure connectivity is successful.

AKS Connect Steps ☝️

AZ CLI Login ☝️

Download AKS Cluster Credential ☝️

Verify the AKS Connectivity

Verify the workload by executing the command kubectl get deployments --all-namespaces=true

AKS remote connectivity verification ☝️

Setup Gateway Node

• Login to Kong Konnect portal and create a new Gateway Manager as ‘Self-Managed Hybrid’.

Kong Konnect New Gateway Manager ☝️

• On the next screen, select Platform as Kubernetes.
• You should see deployment steps to be followed.
• Follow the steps 1 and 2.

Step 1 & 2 : Complete pre-reqs and setup helm

Kong Konnect Data Plane K8s node steps 1 and 2 ☝️

AKS Create Kong Namespace ☝️

Helm Repo Update ☝️

Step 3 : Generate cert and key pair

Kong Konnect Data Plane K8s node steps 3 ☝️

• Store the certificate locally in a folder with the name as tls.crt and tls.key and execute the command (modify the path param for cert and key)

AKS Create Secret ☝️

Step 4 : Configuration Parameter

• Copy the content and store it in value.yaml. Execute the final command as mentioned

Kong Konnect Data Plane k8s node steps 4 ☝️

AKS Kong Konnect Step 4 execution - as cli ☝️

• In Azure AKS UI, after few minutes, you should see successful workload and data-plane found prompt in Kong Konnect

‘Success Data Plane Found’ Prompt ☝️

Workload in AKS ☝️

Verify Success Connection between Kong and AKS ☝️

Create Gateway Service

• Create new gateway service as below screenshots

New Gateway Service Form ☝️

New Gateway Route ☝️

Testing

• Get external IP address, by executing kubectl get svc --namespace kong or from Azure UI , navigate AKS > Services and ingresses (in Kubernetes Resources) > my-kong-kong-proxy.

Get External IP address☝️

Postman - Test Gateway Service ☝️

API Usage from Kong Analytics ☝️

Please do let me know your thoughts and any question in comments.

— Keep Learning 😊

— Aditya Singh

If this article helped you in someway and want to support me, you can …