Azure kubernetes - How many clusters?

Question

We are planning to deploy 15 different applications in azure kubernetes. These applications are owned by multiple business portfolios - eg: marketing, finance, legal.

Currently we have provisioned an AKS cluster with the following configuration

1. Subnet : xxxx/21, that gives us ~2k IPs.
2. Network : Azure CNI
3. Network policy : calico
4. Min & Max nodes: Azure auto scaling
5. Min & Max Pods : Based on the CPU & Memory utilization, maximum allowed.
6. Azure services (eg: SQL) : Leverages service endpoints
7. On premises : Leverages private endpoint & private DNS.
8. Region : West US

Question : Can we deploy all the applications on the same AKS cluster? If not, what is the industry standard & why?

Answer 1

The simple answer is yes. I wouldn't call it industry standard, because AFAIK there isn't one.

The more complicated answer is: It depends. It depends entirely on the security requirements you need to adhere to for the applications you're deploying.

There's a number of ways you can manage this in a single cluster, assuming you want to prevent access (Network / User) via RBAC and the CNI within Kubernetes. It does make things more complicated but arguably less cumbersome long term.

You could separate out the different apps through namespacing, node taints. There's a lot of different options that will be dependent on the requirements you need to fulfill for your clients / company.

Even if you have region specific requirements, you can manage this in a single environment.