Platform Engineering on Wolkwacht

From OrbStack to AKS: Installing Dapr on a Managed Cluster

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Transferring a Dapr-enabled application from local Kubernetes to AKS should be straightforward. The annotations, app ID, application port, sidecar API, and workload manifest stay familiar. The key difference is ownership: a temporary local setup transforms into a shared runtime that requires a version policy, availability plan, network access, identity strategy, and support structure.

This post moves the sample from Installing Dapr on Kubernetes Locally with OrbStack to an existing AKS cluster. We will compare the open-source installation path with the AKS Dapr extension, install the extension, verify the control plane, and deploy the same NGINX workload.

Installing Dapr on Kubernetes Locally with OrbStack

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

To quickly grasp Dapr on Kubernetes, it’s best to start locally rather than with an AKS cluster. Local setup allows for rapid pod creation in seconds, minimizes the consequences of mistakes, and keeps all control-plane components easily accessible for inspection.

In this post, we’ll demonstrate setting up OrbStack’s single-node Kubernetes cluster on macOS, installing Dapr in development mode, examining the creation process, deploying a simple web app with a sidecar, and accessing it via Dapr’s HTTP API. The same annotations and runtime model apply to AKS later, with only differences in the platform and installation approach.

What Is Dapr, and Why Run It on Kubernetes?

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every distributed application gathers various plumbing components. One service requires retries and timeouts, another needs a message broker client, and a third must store some state, retrieve secrets, or discover other services. Over time, each team ends up with a unique set of client libraries, connection handling methods, telemetry, and failure behaviors.

Dapr, the Distributed Application Runtime, provides a uniform API for the underlying infrastructure. Your application communicates with a local Dapr process via HTTP or gRPC. Dapr then interacts with services, the state store, the broker, the secret store, or other components on your application’s behalf. While the application retains control of its business logic, Dapr offers reusable capabilities for building distributed applications.

Secrets Management Showdown: Azure Key Vault CSI Driver vs. External Secrets Operator

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The real question is not whether to use the Azure Key Vault provider for the Secrets Store CSI Driver or the External Secrets Operator (ESO). Instead, it’s whether your workload should access secret data as mounted files or via native Kubernetes Secret objects.

That choice influences application design, rotation, incident handling, RBAC, observability, Helm compatibility, and GitOps. In short: CSI offers a more secure default for applications that consume files; ESO provides a more practical platform default when Kubernetes-native compatibility is a priority. This decision involves both GitOps and security considerations.

KubeBuddy: An Agentless Second Opinion for Kubernetes

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Kubernetes is very good at reporting desired state. A Deployment can be available while its pods restart every few hours. A cluster can show green nodes while workloads have no disruption budgets, probes, resource limits, or network isolation. Dashboards show signals; they do not necessarily connect them into an operational judgment.

That is the gap KubeBuddy tries to fill. The open-source KubeDeck project is a Go-based command-line scanner that connects through an existing Kubernetes context and evaluates cluster health, workloads, security, RBAC, networking, storage, and configuration. It can add provider-specific checks for AKS and GKE and emit terminal, HTML, JSON, and CSV output. There is no controller, Helm release, or long-running agent to install in the cluster.

Is Azure Container Apps Eating AKS's Lunch for Smaller Workloads?

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kubernetes has become so familiar that many teams don’t choose to adopt it anymore; they just start using it. When a new internal API appears, someone sets up an AKS cluster, and within weeks, the team manages node pools, upgrade channels, ingress, identity, policies, observability, and a backlog of Helm charts. None of these decisions are incorrect, but the issue is that the workload might never have required a Kubernetes platform in the first place.

Running AI Workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service: From Platform Control to Model Serving

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 07:31:53 +0000

Most teams begin their AI journey by using a managed model API. This approach works initially but can become problematic when costs become…

Azure Kubernetes Application Network, Part 3: AI Gateway, Observability and Production Fit

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 06:14:44 +0000

Part 1 introduced AppNet, while Part 2 demonstrated its use in zero-trust and multi-cluster patterns. This concluding section explores a…

Azure Kubernetes Application Network, Part 1: What AppNet Is and How to Get Started

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:00:05 +0000

The space between 'we have ingress' and 'we run a full service mesh with sidecars on every pod' has always been a challenging middle…

When Your Cluster Isn’t Sufficient: Introducing Virtual Pools in AKS

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:32:23 +0000

There’s a moment in every Kubernetes journey when the cluster begins to feel… heavy. Not broken, not misconfigured, but stretched in ways…

GitOps on Azure Kubernetes Service: Building a Production-Ready Platform with Flux

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 07:42:06 +0000

Kubernetes platforms seldom fail due to the technology itself; instead, failures are usually caused by operational issues.

The Unseen Work of a Cloud Architect: A Story About Building Azure the Hard (and Right) Way

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 13:02:59 +0000

The Unseen Work of a Cloud Architect: A Story About Building Azure the Hard (and Right) Way

The story of implementing an Azure cloud environment rarely starts with technology. It begins with a seemingly simple conversation: someone in the business has a goal, a team has a new initiative, or an executive has read an article promising faster innovation, better resilience, or lower operational costs. The request sounds straightforward: “We want to move to Azure.” But it’s never that simple. Not because Azure is inherently complex, though it can be, but because cloud architecture is more about managing people, expectations, culture, pressure, and an ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Operating AKS from your workstation

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 13:04:13 +0000

Inside Microsoft’s New AKS Desktop

Application Gateway for Containers: The Future of Cloud-Native Ingress

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:21:46 +0000

Exploring the concept behind Azure’s next-generation ingress platform

Using the AKS-MCP Server in Day-to-Day Operations

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 06:26:36 +0000

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has long been the leading platform for containerized workloads on Microsoft Azure. While AKS offers…

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 11: Governing the Chaos

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 07:57:15 +0000

Unifying identity, policy, networking, and observability across clouds and edge

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 8: Fleet in Focus

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:36:24 +0000

Azure’s multi-cluster powerhouse — and where it falls short

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 7: The Multi-Cluster Reality

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 07:00:03 +0000

From the dream of one perfect cluster to the messy truth of enterprise sprawl

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles: Multi-Cluster Edition

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 08:01:27 +0000

From Fleet to Edge — navigating Kubernetes across clouds and continents

Azure Kubernetes Chronicles 6:

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:31:37 +0000

Managing Multiple AKS Clusters with Azure Fleet

Harnessing Chaos: Implementing Chaos Engineering with Azure Chaos Studio and Gremlin on AKS

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 12:42:28 +0000

Chaos Engineering is a crucial practice for modern cloud operations, enabling teams to identify hidden weaknesses and potential failures in…

From Code to Cloud: A Hands-On Guide to Azure Container Apps

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:48:31 +0000

As a cloud professional, I constantly seek ways to streamline application delivery while reducing operational overhead. Whether you’re building APIs, microservices, or event-driven backends, choosing the right platform can significantly impact speed to market and maintainability.

Introducing Azure Container Apps (ACA) — a fully managed, serverless platform designed specifically for running containerized workloads without the complexity of orchestrating and managing Kubernetes infrastructure. Built on top of Kubernetes and powered by open-source technologies like Dapr and KEDA (Kubernetes Event Driven Autoscaling), ACA offers the best of both worlds: the power and flexibility of containers with the simplicity and developer focus of a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

k3s: Enable Traefik dashboard

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:37:20 +0000

If you install k3s with the default settings it also installs Traefik as a load balancer. Traefik also offers a dashboard which is very easy to enable. If you go on your k3s machines to the path /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests you can find their traefik.yaml. To enable the Traefik dashboard you have to add dashboard.enabled: “true” to the yaml.

root@k3s-master-1:/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests# cat traefik.yaml
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: traefik
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  chart: https://%{KUBERNETES_API}%/static/charts/traefik-1.77.1.tgz
  set:
    rbac.enabled: "true"
    ssl.enabled: "true"
    metrics.prometheus.enabled: "true"
    kubernetes.ingressEndpoint.useDefaultPublishedService: "true"
    dashboard.enabled: "true"
root@k3s-master-1:/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests# cat traefik.yaml
apiVersion: helm.cattle.io/v1
kind: HelmChart
metadata:
  name: traefik
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  chart: https://%{KUBERNETES_API}%/static/charts/traefik-1.77.1.tgz
  set:
    rbac.enabled: "true"
    ssl.enabled: "true"
    metrics.prometheus.enabled: "true"
    kubernetes.ingressEndpoint.useDefaultPublishedService: "true"
    dashboard.enabled: "true"

After a few minutes you will see some extra pods getting started.

k3s: Kubernetes Dashboard + load balancer

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 19:31:14 +0000

In my post about first experience with k3s I blogged about setting up my k3s based cluster on Raspberry PI’s. Since that post I have added two more nodes Raspberry Pi’s and also updated to the 0.3.0 version of k3s.

pi@k3s-master-1:~ $ kubectl get nodes
NAME           STATUS   ROLES    AGE     VERSION
k3s-master-1   Ready    master   4h11m   v1.13.5-k3s.1
k3s-node-1     Ready    node     129m    v1.13.5-k3s.1
k3s-node-2     Ready    node     118m    v1.13.5-k3s.1
k3s-node-3     Ready    node     119m    v1.13.5-k3s.1
pi@k3s-master-1:~ $

Next step for me was getting the Kubernetes Dashboard up and running. I used the information from Web UI (Dashboard) First downloaded I the kubernetes-dashboard.yaml

k3s: release v0.2.0 released

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 07:34:42 +0000

Rancher has released v0.2.0.of k3s. Information of the new release is in this article. As soon as I have some time and I have added two extra nodes to the cluster, I’m going to add the cluster to my Rancher server. I have upgraded my Raspberry Pi’s to v0.2.0. The process of upgrading is really simple. Just download the new version and replace the old version of k3s with the new version and restart.

k3s: Lightweight Kubernetes Distribution first experience

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 16:25:56 +0000

Rancher introduced alsmost week ago k3s, a lightweight Kubernetes Distribution. In the YouTube video below you hear Shannon Williams and Darren Shepherd from Rancher talk about K3S, what it is, the usecases and demo of K3S.

https://youtu.be/5-5t672vFi4

k3sis a fully compliant, production-grade Kubernetes distribution that maintains an absolutely tiny footprint. Weighing in at less than 40 MB, it only needs 512 MB of RAM to run. This means it’s perfect for all kinds of computing that requires a minimal about of memory and space.