Azure @ Enterprise - Upgrade blocked!!! create new AKS cluster

Finally, it happened when upgrading an AKS cluster. Its nothing but a dead-end in upgrade and we have to create a new AKS cluster and migrate the workload with all settings

Why it was not upgraded?

Any upgrade requires some planning. After the upgrade, we need to make sure all the apps are running. Why bother? Let us keep the best practice aside, and upgrade when needed. Ideally, the environment is expected to be scripted so it is a single click to recreate

Reason for the current upgrade

I wanted to add a new node pool to the AKS cluster. When I am trying to add a node pool, it says the Kubernetes version is old. The cluster needs to be upgraded.

What if I try to upgrade AKS Cluster

It is not showing the available upgrade.

As per Microsoft guidelines, do not upgrade forcefully.

What is left

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to make sure the entire environment is scripted out. But now need to reverse engineer the cluster to script everything back and create a new cluster.

Next time consider enabling the auto upgrade feature.

References

• AKS Upgrade Practices - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/operator-guides/aks/aks-upgrade-practices