AKS-3-Tier-App

A sample three-tier application built with .NET 10 and designed for deployment on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). The app demonstrates how to run a Blazor WebAssembly frontend, an ASP.NET Core API, and a Redis data store together in Kubernetes using Helm.

Architecture

graph TD
    User([User / Browser])

    subgraph AKS[AKS Cluster]
        Ingress[NGINX Ingress Controller]
        Frontend["Frontend (Blazor WebAssembly)"]
        API["API (ASP.NET Core)"]
        Redis[(Redis)]
    end

    User --> Ingress --> Frontend --> API --> Redis

Loading

Tier	Technology	Description
Frontend	Blazor WebAssembly + ASP.NET Server	Displays environment info from both frontend and backend
API	ASP.NET Core 10 + Swagger	Returns host/IP/memory info and persists entries to Redis
Database	Redis	Stores the last 10 API-caller host names as a list

The home page shows live environment details (hostname, IP addresses, OS, .NET version, memory) from both the frontend server and the backend API, along with the most recent hosts that connected to the database.

Tech Stack

• .NET 10 – Blazor WebAssembly (client), ASP.NET Core (server & API)
• Redis – in-memory data store for the data tier
• Docker / Docker Compose – local development environment
• Kubernetes (AKS) – production deployment target
• Helm – Kubernetes package management
• NGINX Ingress Controller – routes external traffic to the frontend
• GitHub Actions – CI/CD pipeline that builds and publishes container images to GitHub Container Registry

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK
• Docker Desktop (includes Docker Compose)
• kubectl (for Kubernetes deployments)
• Helm 3 (for Helm-based deployments)
• An AKS cluster (for cloud deployments) – see Quickstart: Deploy an AKS cluster

Local Development

Use Docker Compose to run all three services locally:

docker compose up --build

Service	Local URL
Frontend	http://localhost:5100
API	http://localhost:5101
Redis	localhost:6379

The API exposes a Swagger UI at http://localhost:5101/swagger.

Container Images

Container images are published to the GitHub Container Registry on every push to master:

Image	Pull command
API	docker pull ghcr.io/macel94/aks-three-tier-app/api:master
Frontend	docker pull ghcr.io/macel94/aks-three-tier-app/frontend.server:master

Kubernetes Deployment

Option 1 – Helm (recommended)

1. Add the NGINX Ingress Controller repository and install it:

   helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
   helm repo update

2. Run the deploy script from deploy/k8s/scripts/:

   cd deploy/k8s/scripts
   ./deploy.ps1

   The script runs:

   helm upgrade nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx --install
   helm upgrade three-tier-app ./../helm --install

3. To uninstall:

   ./uninstall.ps1

Option 2 – Raw kubectl manifests

Apply the individual manifests from deploy/k8s/helm/templates/:

kubectl apply -f deploy/k8s/helm/templates/db-redis.yaml
kubectl apply -f deploy/k8s/helm/templates/api.yaml
kubectl apply -f deploy/k8s/helm/templates/frontend.yaml
kubectl apply -f deploy/k8s/helm/templates/ingress-nginx.yaml

Helm values

Key values that can be overridden in deploy/k8s/helm/values.yaml:

Key	Default	Description
Env	Development	Application environment name

CI/CD

GitHub Actions workflows build Docker images on every pull request and push to master:

Workflow	Trigger	Action
api	Push/PR to master affecting AKS.Three.Tier.App.API/**	Build (PR) or Build & Push (merge)
frontend-server	Push/PR to master affecting AKS.Three.Tier.App.Frontend/**	Build (PR) or Build & Push (merge)

Images are tagged with the branch name (e.g., master) and pushed to ghcr.io.

Project Structure

AKS-3-Tier-App/
├── AKS.Three.Tier.App.API/        # ASP.NET Core 10 REST API
│   ├── Controllers/               # API controllers (environment info + Redis)
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   └── Program.cs
├── AKS.Three.Tier.App.Frontend/   # Blazor WebAssembly + Server
│   ├── Client/                    # Blazor WASM client
│   ├── Server/                    # ASP.NET Core host & BFF
│   └── Shared/                    # Shared DTOs
├── deploy/
│   └── k8s/
│       ├── helm/                  # Helm chart (Chart.yaml, values.yaml, templates/)
│       └── scripts/               # deploy.ps1 / uninstall.ps1
├── docker-compose.yml             # Local multi-service setup
└── .github/workflows/             # CI/CD pipelines

License

MIT