This post was co-authored by Narayan Annamalai, Partner PM Manager, Microsoft Azure.

In December 2022, Microsoft and Isovalent announced the collaboration to bring the Isovalent Cilium Enterprise offering onto Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) via Azure Marketplace. Today, we are happy to announce that Isovalent Cilium Enterprise offering is now available on the Azure Marketplace.

Isovalent Cilium Enterprise on Azure is a powerful tool for securing and managing Kubernetes’ workloads on Azure. Isovalent Cilium Enterprise's range of advanced features and easy-to-deploy ability makes it an ideal solution for organizations of all sizes looking to secure their cloud-native applications.

Enterprises realize that to achieve accelerated business growth, they can leverage AKS. However, as applications scale, there is increased complexity with security and networking. Isovalent Cilium Enterprise, which is built on top of the open-source Cilium project, addresses these gaps by providing additional functionality such as advanced observability and security policy enforcement across multiple layers of the stack. It uses eBPF technology to deliver network and application-layer security, while also providing observability and tracing for Kubernetes workloads. Isovalent Cilium Enterprise also provides seamless integration with popular Kubernetes platforms and tools, including Istio, Helm, and more, thereby making it a trusted offering among organizations. Azure Marketplace is an online store for buying and selling cloud computing solutions that allows you to deploy Isovalent Cilium Enterprise to Azure with ease.

With such a tight and native integration of Isovalent Cilium Enterprise with Azure Marketplace, customers can deploy and upgrade Isovalent Cilium Enterprise features to a new or existing AKS cluster (running Azure CNI powered by Cilium) with a few clicks. Isovalent Cilium Enterprise is built with native integration with the Azure networking platform to offer advanced features and capabilities with best-in-class performance and scale. Furthermore, customers can seamlessly perform lifecycle management of the application by receiving version updates, auto-upgrades, and vulnerability scans thus allowing them to achieve their business goals effectively. They also benefit from the simplified billing from Azure Marketplace. Whether customers are just getting started with AKS or have a large-scale production deployment, Isovalent Cilium Enterprise on Azure Marketplace will help them achieve better visibility, security, and compliance. The myriad benefits of a trusted and secure platform such as Azure Marketplace will accrue savings by limiting management overhead and driving productivity for enterprises at scale.

Key capabilities for Azure Kubernetes Services customers

To recapture, Isovalent Cilium Enterprise provides a range of advanced features built on Kubernetes networking, security, and observability. Here are just a few of the key capabilities that Isovalent Cilium Enterprise exposes to AKS customers:

•    Enhanced observability: Isovalent Cilium Enterprise provides deep visibility into your Kubernetes networking and security via Hubble. This includes detailed flow-level visibility, service mesh tracing, and more.

•    Advanced security: Isovalent Cilium Enterprise provides multi-layer security policy enforcement, including layer 7 application security policies. This allows you to protect your Kubernetes environment from advanced threats while also ensuring compliance with industry regulations.

•    Better Scalability: Isovalent Cilium Enterprise is designed to scale with your Kubernetes workloads, providing security and observability for large-scale Kubernetes clusters.

•    Enterprise-grade support: Isovalent Cilium Enterprise includes enterprise-grade support from Isovalent, including everyday support and access to patches and updates.

Start your journey with Isovalent Cilium Enterprise on Azure

To get started with Isovalent Cilium Enterprise on Azure, simply navigate to the Azure Marketplace from the Azure Portal and search for "Cilium Enterprise." You can choose between different options based on the number of nodes in your cluster and the level of support you require. Once you have selected your subscription and accepted the terms, you can deploy Isovalent Cilium Enterprise to your Kubernetes cluster with just a few clicks.

The benefits of Isovalent Cilium Enterprise through Azure Marketplace

The key benefits of using Isovalent Cilium Enterprise in the Azure Marketplace include:

•    Easy deployment: You can deploy Isovalent Cilium Enterprise on Azure with just a few clicks from the Azure Marketplace. You can either create a new AKS cluster or seamlessly upgrade an existing AKS cluster running Azure CNI powered by Cilium with the Isovalent Cilium Enterprise package.

•    Zero data path downtime while upgrading Cilium OSS to Isovalent Cilium Enterprise via Azure Marketplace.

•    Enhanced billing experience: Azure Marketplace provides a unified billing experience and an integrated experience for your Isovalent Cilium Enterprise usage.

•    Limited management overhead for customers in maintaining the upgrades. Azure Marketplace supports configurable auto-upgrades for minor versions.

Get started today

Try Isovalent Cilium Enterprise out today on the Azure Marketplace.

Read the blog post "Isovalent Cilium Enterprise now Available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace."

For more information on the Isovalent Cilium Enterprise product and capabilities, visit Isovalent Cilium Enterprise: Observability, security, networking.