Last week I went through how to run SQL Server in Kubernetes on Azure Container Services (ACS)

This week I want to explore the built-in Kubernetes dashboard which is available in ACS by default. (N.B. – You will need to have run through the steps in my last post to follow here)

The Kubernetes dashboard is available in a pod but can only be seen by running an additional flag with the kubectl get pods command: –

kubectl get pods --all-namespaces

In order to access the dashboard the kubectl proxy command needs to be run which starts a proxy to the Kubernetes API server:-

kubectl proxy

The dashboard then becomes available at http://localhost:8001/ui

From the dashboard all the objects that were created in my last post can be viewed, such as the pod created (on the main page): –

The nodes of the cluster: –

And the service created in order to access SQL within the pod: –

But not only can existing objects be viewed, new ones can be created.

In my last post I created a single pod running SQL Server, I want to move on from that as you’d generally never just deploy one pod. Instead you would create what’s called a deployment.

The dashboard makes it really simple to create deployments. Just click Deployments on the right-hand side menu and fill out the details: –

Don’t forget to click on Advanced Details and enter in the environment variables required.

At a minimum variables for ACCEPT_EULA (otherwise the container will not run) and SA_PASSWORD (otherwise you will not be able to connect to SQL Server) need to be specified: –

Hit Deploy and then the following screen will show the progress of the deployment: –

The new objects will have a green tick next to them once the deployment is complete: –

The external IP used to connect to SQL within the pod created can be found by clicking on the newly created service (found on the right-hand side menu).

That IP can then be dropped into SSMS (along with the SA username and password set) and boom! A connection to SQL Server running in a Kubernetes pod that was created via a deployment from the dashboard: –

Thanks for reading!