AKS KICKSTART

Managing Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is complex and demands deep expertise. Fairwinds lowers the barrier to entry by delivering people-led, white-glove AKS managed services—engineered for scalability, security, automation, and repeatability.

Whether launching a new application, running a Proof of Concept (POC) or Proof of Value (POV) for AKS, or migrating existing workloads to Azure, our Kubernetes Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) guide you at every step. We rapidly provision production-grade AKS clusters, equipped with best-in-class tooling and add-ons using GitOps—an approach leveraging Git repositories as the single source of truth for automating Kubernetes infrastructure. This ensures transparency, version control, and reliable recovery, thereby improving resiliency and compliance in your Azure cloud environment.

At Fairwinds, we simplify AKS onboarding, eliminate operational bottlenecks, and accelerate your AKS cloud adoption, increasing speed-to-production with enterprise-grade security, resiliency, and intelligent automation.

Step 1: AKS Cluster Setup

• Rapid provisioning of secure, production-ready AKS clusters—built to maximize the power of AKS for your business needs.

• Full compliance with Azure AKS best practices for cluster architecture, Azure networking, identity and access management (using Microsoft Entra ID/Azure AD), node pool configuration, and resource efficiency.

Step 2: Add-Ons & Tooling with GitOps

• Automated deployment of essential Kubernetes add-ons (such as cert-manager, Istio, Azure Monitor integrations, Goldilocks, and policy management tools) through modern GitOps workflows.

• GitOps enables declarative, version-controlled, and audit-ready cluster states, allowing safe, reliable expansion or rollback of changes while enhancing visibility and governance.

Step 3: Workload Onboarding

• Fairwinds’ proven paved-road onboarding process enables seamless migration of workloads into your AKS clusters—including robust role-based access control (RBAC) enforcement, adoption of Kubernetes and Azure-native best practices, and automated security guardrails.

• Comprehensive support for production-grade workloads ensures every migration and deployment is seamless, predictable, and secure.

Step 4: Expansion Bundles

• Options to expand your AKS footprint: multi-cluster scaling, hybrid-cloud or edge deployments, and advanced workload isolation strategies.

• • Enterprise-grade 24/7 support, automatic upgrades, patching, incident response, and managed common vulnerabilities and exclusions (CVE) handling—so your team can sleep through the night.

By partnering with Fairwinds for AKS managed services, your organization gains secure, repeatable AKS cluster deployments, simplified onboarding, and operational excellence for the long term. Our approach combines automation, industry best practices, a consistent onboarding process, and access to Azure and Kubernetes experts—delivering speed, resilience, and peace of mind at every stage of your AKS journey.