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How to Design Multi Region Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Clusters

Author

Govardhana M K
December 04, 2025

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🧠 DEEP DIVE USE CASE

How to Design Multi Region Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Clusters

A few weeks ago we explored how to design an AKS cluster by first understanding Kubernetes fundamentals, node pools, scaling, identities, storage, and the hub and spoke network model.

If you missed that edition, check it out here.

Now we take that single region design and extend it across geographies, where you need to think about how your apps stay online, how traffic moves between regions, and how the platform keeps running even during failures.

Traffic Flow Architecture

When you run AKS in production, the network layout decides how your apps talk to the internet, how internal services communicate, and how traffic leaves the cluster.

The architecture here is a clean example of how to build this in the real world without surprises during scale or outages.

The hub handles security.
Azure Firewall is the only outbound path. Bastion gives safe admin access. The gateway connects to on premises. Nothing in AKS talks directly to the internet.

The spoke runs the actual cluster.
Separate subnets for node pools, Application Gateway, internal load balancer, and private endpoints. This avoids routing issues and keeps blast radius small.

Inbound traffic is simple.
Internet → Application Gateway WAF → AKS internal load balancer → Ingress controller → Pods.

Outbound traffic is even simpler.
Pods → Node → Route table → Hub firewall → Internet. One controlled path. Easy to audit.

Private endpoints keep services internal.
AKS pulls images from ACR and reads secrets from Key Vault without ever leaving the VNet.

Spokes scale independently.
If another team or workload needs isolation, you attach another spoke without touching the hub.

❝

Your workloads run in the spoke. Your security and connectivity run in the hub. The traffic between them is controlled, predictable, and monitored.

This is the structure teams use when they want stable routing, secure edges, and no surprises during upgrades or bursts in traffic.

With this foundational setup in place, let us now deep dive into the architecture of Designing Multi Region Azure Kubernetes Service clusters.

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