The cloud-provider-azure module is responsible for interacting with the Azure cloud resources. It allows the node manager module to use Azure resources for provisioning nodes for the defined node group (a group of nodes that are acted upon as if they were a single entity).

The cloud-provider-azure module:

  • Manages Azure resources using the cloud-controller-manager (CCM) module:
    • The CCM module creates network routes for the PodNetwork network on the Azure side;
    • The CCM module creates LoadBalancers for Kubernetes Service objects that have the LoadBalancer type;
    • The CCM module updates the metadata of the cluster nodes according to the configuration parameters and deletes nodes that are no longer in Azure;
  • Provisions nodes in Azure using the CSI storage component;
  • Enables the necessary CNI plugin (using the simple bridge);
  • Registers with the node-manager module so that AzureInstanceClasses can be used when creating the NodeGroup.