Getting started with Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK)

Configure permissions, create an ACK managed cluster, and deploy your first containerized application.

Set up ACK permissions.
Create a managed Kubernetes cluster.
Deploy your first containerized application.
Operate and maintain your cluster and applications.

Before you begin

Ensure the following:

Alibaba Cloud account -- If you don't have one, create an account on the Alibaba Cloud website.
Permissions -- Sufficient permissions to create and manage ACK clusters. See Step 1 for role configuration.

Step 1: Grant permissions to accounts

Assign the required service roles and access policies. ACK uses RAM for platform-level permissions and RBAC for Kubernetes-level permissions.

Assign ACK service roles -- Grant the default service roles ACK requires to manage cloud resources on your behalf. See ACK roles.

For fine-grained access control, configure additional policies:

RAM authorization -- Create custom RAM policies to control which Alibaba Cloud resources users can access. See Create a custom RAM policy.
RBAC authorization -- Grant RBAC permissions within the Kubernetes cluster to control what users can do. See Grant RBAC permissions to RAM users or RAM roles.

Step 2: Create an ACK managed cluster

ACK managed clusters handle the Kubernetes control plane, so you can focus on deploying applications.

See Create an ACK managed cluster.

To create a cluster with a custom image or through API operations, see Create a cluster.

Step 3: Deploy an application

Deploy an application with an image or orchestration template. To get started quickly, create a simple stateless application.

See Create a stateless application by using a Deployment.

Note

For applications with multiple image-based services, use a YAML file to deploy.

Step 4: Operate and maintain your cluster and applications

Use the following resources to manage ongoing cluster and application operations.

Common tasks

Common tasks for day-to-day cluster and application management:

Scale your applications -- Configure automatic scaling for varying workloads. See Implement Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA).
Monitor your cluster -- Track application performance and cluster health. See Monitor applications.
Collect and manage logs -- Centralize container log collection with Simple Log Service (SLS). See Collect log data from containers by using Log Service.
Upgrade your cluster -- Keep your cluster up to date with the latest Kubernetes version. See Manually upgrade ACK clusters.
Manage costs -- Gain visibility into cluster resource usage and optimize spending. See Enable cost insights.
Back up your applications -- Protect workloads with backup and restore. See Back up and restore applications in an ACK cluster.

Cluster O&M reference

Manage clusters

Maintain nodes

Manage node pools

Application O&M reference

Deploy applications

Update applications and images

Scale applications

Back up applications

Monitoring

Log management

Cost analysis and alert management

Resource costs and cleanup

ACK clusters consume cloud resources such as Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances and load balancers, which incur charges. Delete evaluation clusters and associated resources when finished to avoid unnecessary costs.

Move to production

This guide uses default settings suitable for getting started. Before deploying to production, review your cluster configuration for security, high availability, and performance.