Azure Kubernetes Service, or AKS, is the Microsoft implementation of Kubernetes. Setting up a regular Kubernetes cluster is a lot of work, but with AKS, it has been made easier. This is because Kubernetes is a managed platform and the reason why almost all operational tasks are handled by the platform itself.

Some key functionalities of AKS are as follows:

• Azure manages critical tasks, such as health monitoring and maintenance, including Kubernetes version upgrades and patching.
• Azure performs simple cluster scaling.
• The master node of Kubernetes is fully managed.
• Master nodes are free, and you only pay for running agent nodes.

By using the AKS, a Kubernetes cluster can be operational within minutes. Besides that, the focus will be on the application as the master node is fully managed. Now, let's try to run a Kubernetes cluster with custom images.