AKS Deployment: Prerequisites & Kubernetes Orchestrator

Configure OpenMetadata on Azure Kubernetes Service using the recommended Kubernetes-native orchestrator with Helm charts and scalable configuration templates.

OpenMetadata Deployment on Azure Kubernetes Service Cluster

OpenMetadata can be deployed on Azure Kubernetes Service. This guide covers both the recommended Kubernetes orchestrator (new in 1.12) and the alternative Airflow-based orchestrator.

Prerequisites

Azure Services for Database and Search Engine as Elastic Cloud

It is recommended to use Azure SQL and Elastic Cloud on Azure for Production Deployments.

We support:

• Azure SQL (MySQL) engine version 8 or higher
• Azure SQL (PostgreSQL) engine version 12 or higher
• Elastic Cloud (ElasticSearch version 9.x, minimum 9.0.0, recommended 9.3.0)

We recommend:

• Azure SQL to be Multi Zone Available and Production Workload Environment
• Elastic Cloud Environment with multiple zones and minimum 2 nodes

Step 1 - Create an AKS Cluster

If you are deploying on a new cluster set the EnableAzureDiskFileCSIDriver=true to enable container storage interface storage drivers.

az aks create   --resource-group  MyResourceGroup    \
                --name MyAKSClusterName              \
                --nodepool-name agentpool            \
                --outbound-type loadbalancer         \
                --location YourPreferredLocation     \
                --generate-ssh-keys                  \
                --enable-addons monitoring           \
                EnableAzureDiskFileCSIDriver=true

For existing cluster it is important to enable the CSI storage drivers:

az aks update -n MyAKSCluster -g MyResourceGroup --enable-disk-driver --enable-file-driver

Step 2 - Create a Namespace (optional)

kubectl create namespace openmetadata

Step 3 - Add the Helm OpenMetadata Repo

helm repo add open-metadata https://helm.open-metadata.org/
helm repo update

---

Kubernetes Orchestrator Configuration (Recommended)

Starting with OpenMetadata 1.12, we recommend using the Kubernetes native orchestrator for running ingestion pipelines. This eliminates the need for Apache Airflow and simplifies your deployment.

The Kubernetes orchestrator runs ingestion pipelines as native K8s Jobs and CronJobs. For full documentation on features, configuration options, and troubleshooting, see the Kubernetes Orchestrator Guide.

The recommended OMJob Operator approach requires installing Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), which needs elevated cluster permissions. If your cluster policies don’t allow CRDs, you can disable the operator by setting useOMJobOperator: false and omjobOperator.enabled: false in your values file to use native K8s Jobs instead.

Create Kubernetes Secrets

Create the required secrets for your database and search engine:

# Database secret (for MySQL)
kubectl create secret generic mysql-secrets \
  --namespace openmetadata \
  --from-literal=openmetadata-mysql-password=<YOUR_AZURE_SQL_PASSWORD>

# ElasticSearch secret
kubectl create secret generic elasticsearch-secrets \
  --namespace openmetadata \
  --from-literal=openmetadata-elasticsearch-password=<YOUR_ELASTIC_CLOUD_PASSWORD>

OpenMetadata Values Configuration

Create your openmetadata-values.yaml with the following configuration:

# openmetadata-values.yaml
openmetadata:
  config:
    # Database configuration
    elasticsearch:
      host: <ELASTIC_CLOUD_ENDPOINT_WITHOUT_HTTPS>
      searchType: elasticsearch
      port: 443
      scheme: https
      connectionTimeoutSecs: 5
      socketTimeoutSecs: 60
      keepAliveTimeoutSecs: 600
      batchSize: 10
      auth:
        enabled: true
        username: <ELASTIC_CLOUD_USERNAME>
        password:
          secretRef: elasticsearch-secrets
          secretKey: openmetadata-elasticsearch-password
    database:
      host: <AZURE_SQL_ENDPOINT>
      port: 3306
      driverClass: com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver
      dbScheme: mysql
      dbUseSSL: true
      databaseName: <AZURE_SQL_DATABASE_NAME>
      auth:
        username: <AZURE_SQL_DATABASE_USERNAME>
        password:
          secretRef: mysql-secrets
          secretKey: openmetadata-mysql-password

    # Kubernetes Orchestrator configuration
    pipelineServiceClientConfig:
      enabled: true
      type: "k8s"
      metadataApiEndpoint: http://openmetadata.openmetadata.svc.cluster.local:8585/api

      k8s:
        ingestionImage: "docker.getcollate.io/openmetadata/ingestion-base:1.12.0"
        useOMJobOperator: true

# Enable the OMJob Operator (recommended for production)
omjobOperator:
  enabled: true
  image:
    repository: docker.getcollate.io/openmetadata/omjob-operator
    tag: "1.12.0"

image:
  tag: "1.12.0"

For advanced configuration options such as resource limits, job lifecycle settings, failure diagnostics, RBAC, and security contexts, see the Kubernetes Orchestrator Guide.

For Database as PostgreSQL, use the below config for database values:

database:
  host: <AZURE_SQL_ENDPOINT>
  port: 5432
  driverClass: org.postgresql.Driver
  dbScheme: postgresql
  dbUseSSL: true
  databaseName: <AZURE_SQL_DATABASE_NAME>
  auth:
    username: <AZURE_SQL_DATABASE_USERNAME>
    password:
      secretRef: postgresql-secret
      secretKey: postgresql-password

Deploy OpenMetadata

# Install OpenMetadata (no dependencies chart needed with K8s orchestrator)
helm install openmetadata open-metadata/openmetadata \
  --namespace openmetadata \
  --values openmetadata-values.yaml

With the Kubernetes orchestrator, you don’t need to deploy the openmetadata-dependencies chart that includes Airflow. This significantly simplifies your deployment.

Verify the Deployment

# Check pods are running
kubectl get pods -n openmetadata

# Check the K8s orchestrator health in OpenMetadata UI
# Navigate to Settings → Preferences → Health

Access OpenMetadata

kubectl port-forward service/openmetadata 8585:8585 -n openmetadata