AKS Cluster Health Monitor Now in Preview

This article discusses the new AKS Cluster Health Monitor, currently in preview, which is an AKS-managed add-on that runs inside your cluster to continuously test core components like DNS resolution, API server connectivity, and metrics server availability. It exposes results as Prometheus metrics on port 9800, allowing direct alerting without requiring Azure Monitor managed Prometheus. The add-on can automatically remediate stuck CoreDNS pods, preventing DNS outages, and performs synthetic API server operations for real end-to-end testing. It provides clear status indicators (Healthy, Unhealthy, Unknown) with error codes for troubleshooting. This is a targeted health-checking layer for day-two operations, not a replacement for broader monitoring tools.