Cheapest way to run Kubernetes on Azure?

Kubernetes is the future. There is no doubt about its capabilities, and the role it is currently and will continue to play will increase the demand for software professionals to learn Kubernetes in order to land high-paying jobs.

Harsh reality of Kubernetes is that it is not free to run, especially when you are learning and experimenting, and you must fund it out of your own pocket. As a result, today I’m going to tell you cheapest way to run/maintain a cluster in Azure.

Please keep in mind, that these recommendations are intended for running your DEV/Test/POC workloads.

Let’s get started; here are a few things to think of for “cost-optimization” about before deploying the cluster in Azure.

1. Cluster Configuration.
2. Region
3. Public IP’s.
4. Load Balancer SKU.
5. Azure Policy.
6. Stop the cluster.
7. Spot Node Pool
8. Scheduler Control
9. Cluster Autoscaler

Cluster Configuration:

Node pool selection is critical for your cluster configuration because it’s what we’re charged for, and it has hidden costs from these four major areas, which I’ve listed below.

1. Instance Type — Standard B2’s .
2. Number of Instances — 1 (Single User Node Pool) .