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Confidential VM node pool support on AKS with AMD SEV-SNP confidential VMs

Important

For mainstream AKS confidential workloads, start with this VM-level model. For broader VM isolation options, see Azure confidential VM options, including Intel TDX guidance.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) makes it simple to deploy a managed Kubernetes cluster in Azure. In AKS, nodes of the same configuration are grouped together into node pools. These node pools contain the underlying VMs that run your applications.

AKS now supports confidential VM node pools with Azure confidential VMs. These confidential VMs are the generally available DCasv5 and ECasv5 confidential VM-series utilizing 3rd Gen AMD EPYCTM processors with Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) security features. To read more about this offering, see the announcement.

Benefits

Confidential node pools use VMs with a hardware-based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). AMD SEV-SNP confidential VMs block the hypervisor and other host management code from accessing VM memory and state. They add defense-in-depth protections against operator access.

In addition to the hardened security profile, confidential node pools on AKS also enable:

  • Lift and shift with full AKS feature support to enable a seamless lift-and-shift of Linux container workloads
  • Heterogeneous node pools to store sensitive data in a VM-level TEE node pool with memory encryption keys generated from the chipset itself
  • Cryptographically attest that your code runs on AMD SEV-SNP hardware by using an application to generate the hardware attestation report.

Graphic of VM nodes in AKS with encrypted code and data in confidential VM node pools 1 and 2, on top of the hypervisor

Get started and add confidential node pools to an existing AKS cluster by using this quick start guide.

Questions?

If you have questions about container offerings, contact acconaks@microsoft.com.

Next steps

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