Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is the managed Kubernetes service of Microsoft Azure. According to the product page, Microsoft handles tasks such as health monitoring and maintenance of the control plane, while the customer manages the agent nodes. The service includes AKS Automatic for automated upgrades and scaling, GitHub Actions integration, monitoring, identity and access management, and Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager for multiple clusters. With Azure Arc, AKS can also run on your own infrastructure or at the edge.
AKS is provided by Microsoft Corporation, headquartered in the United States, and is therefore subject to US law such as the CLOUD Act. Clusters are regional resources: the AKS FAQ states that all data is stored in the cluster's region, so a European region can be chosen. In its data protection terms for online services Microsoft sets out GDPR processor commitments and uses standard contractual clauses for transfers outside the EEA. Kubernetes itself is open source, which eases moving to other environments, but Azure-specific integrations remain tied to the platform.