Comparing feature sets for AKS enabled by Azure Arc deployment options

[Guest AbhilashaAgarwala]

This article shows a comparison of features available for the different deployment options under AKS enabled by Azure Arc.

 

	AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	AKS Edge Essentials	AKS on Windows Server and AKS on Azure Stack HCI 22H2
Supported infrastructure where the Kubernetes clusters are hosted	Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise Windows 10/11 Enterprise Windows 10/11 Pro Windows Server 2019/2022	Azure Stack HCI 22H2 Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2022
CNCF conformant?	Yes	Yes	Yes
K8s cluster lifecycle management tools (create, scale, upgrade and delete clusters)	Az CLI Az PowerShell Azure Portal ARM templates	PowerShell	PowerShell Windows Admin Center
Kubernetes cluster management plane	Kubernetes clusters are managed by Arc Resource Bridge that runs as part of infrastructure components on the Azure Stack HCI cluster.	Kubernetes clusters are self-managed, to preserve resources.	Kubernetes clusters are managed using a “management cluster”, that is installed using PowerShell before Kubernetes workload clusters can be created.
Can you use kubectl and other open-source Kubernetes tools?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Supported Kubernetes versions.	Supports K8s only. Continuous updates to supported Kubernetes versions. For latest version support, run az aksarc get-versions.	Supports K3s and K8s. Continuous updates to supported Kubernetes versions. For the latest version, visit steps to prepare your machine for AKS Edge Essentials.	Supports K8s only. Continuous updates to supported Kubernetes versions. For latest version support, visit AKS hybrid releases on GitHub.
Azure Fleet Manager integration	No	No	No
Terraform integration	Not yet	No	No
Azure Monitor integration	Yes, via Arc extensions	Yes, via Arc extensions	Yes, via Arc extensions

 

 

 

The following is a comparison between node pool capabilities for AKS enabled by Azure Arc deployment options:

 

	AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	AKS Edge Essentials	AKS on Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI 22H2
Windows nodepool support	Yes Windows Server 2019 Datacenter Windows Server 2022 Datacenter	Yes Windows Server 2022 Datacenter (Core)	Yes Windows Server 2019 Datacenter Windows Server 2022 Datacenter
Linux OS options	CBL-Mariner	CBL-Mariner	CBL-Mariner
Container Runtime	Containerd for Linux and Windows nodes.	Containerd for Linux and Windows nodes.	Containerd for Linux and Windows nodes.
Node pool auto-scalar	Yes	No (manually add nodes)	Yes
Horizontal pod scalar	Yes	No	Yes
GPU support	Yes	No	Yes
Azure container registry	Yes	Yes	Yes

 

 

 

The following is a comparison between networking features for AKS enabled by Azure Arc deployment options:

 

	AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	AKS Edge Essentials	AKS on Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI 22H2
Network creation and management	You need to create the network in Azure Stack HCI 23H2 before creating an AKS cluster. You also need to ensure the network has the right connectivity and IP address availability for a successful cluster creation and operation.	You need to provide the IP address range for node IPs and Service IPs, that is available and has the right connectivity. The network configuration needed for the cluster is handled by AKS. Read AKS Edge Essentials networking.	You need to create the network in Windows Server before creating an AKS cluster. You also need to ensure the Read network has the right connectivity and IP address availability for a successful cluster creation and operation.
Supported networking options	Static IP networks with/without VLAN ID	Static IP address or use reserved IPs when using DHCP	DHCP networks with/without VLAN ID Static IP networks with/without VLAN ID
SDN support	No	No	Yes
Supported CNIs	Calico	Calico (K8s) Flannel (K3s)	Calico
Load balancer	MetalLB Arc extension Bring your own load balancer (BYOLB)	KubeVIP MetalLB Arc extension Bring your own load balancer (BYOLB)	HAProxy MetalLB Arc extension SDN load balancer Bring your own load balancer (BYOLB)

 

 

 

The following is a comparison between storage features for AKS enabled by Azure Arc deployment options:

 

	AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	AKS Edge Essentials	AKS on Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI 22H2
Types of supported persistent volumes	Read Write Once Read Write Many	PVC using local storage	Read Write Once Read Write Many
Container Storage Interface (CSI) support	Yes	Yes	Yes
CSI drivers	Disk and Files (SMB and NFS) drivers installed by default.	Support for SMB and NFS storage drivers.	Support for SMB and NFS storage drivers.
Dynamic provisioning support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Volume resizing support	Yes	Yes	Yes

 

 

 

The following is a comparison between security and authentication options in AKS and AKS enabled by Azure Arc:

 

	AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	AKS Edge Essentials	AKS on Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI 22H2
Access to Kubernetes clusters	Kubectl	Kubectl	Kubectl
Kubernetes cluster authentication	Certificate based Kubeconfig Microsoft Entra ID	Certificate based Kubeconfig Microsoft Entra ID	Certificate based Kubeconfig Microsoft Entra ID Active Directory SSO
Kubernetes cluster authorization (RBAC)	Kubernetes RBAC Azure RBAC	Kubernetes RBAC	Kubernetes RBAC
Support for network policies	No	No	Yes – only for Linux containers
Limit source networks that can access API server	Yes	Yes	Yes
Certificate rotation and encryption	Yes	Yes	Yes
Secrets store CSI driver	Yes	Yes	Yes
gMSA support	No	Yes	Yes
Azure policy	Yes, via Arc extensions	Yes, via Arc extensions	Yes, via Arc extensions
Azure Defender	No	Yes, via Arc extensions (preview)	Yes, via Arc extensions (preview)

 

 

 

The following is a comparison between pricing and SLA for AKS and AKS enabled by Azure Arc:

 

	AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2	AKS Edge Essentials	AKS on Windows Server and Azure Stack HCI 22H2
Pricing	Pricing is based on the number of workload cluster vCPUs. Control plane node nodes are free. Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2 is priced a $10/physical core and AKS workload VMs is $24/vcpu/month.	$2.50 per device per month.	Pricing is based on the number of workload cluster vCPUs. Control plane nodes & load balancer VMs are free. Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2 is priced a $10/physical core and AKS workload VMs is $24/vcpu/month.
Azure hybrid benefit support	Yes	No	Yes
SLA	No SLA offered since the Kubernetes cluster is running on-premises.	No SLA offered since the Kubernetes cluster is running on-premises.	No SLA offered since the Kubernetes cluster is running on-premises.

 

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