---
title: Plan Networking for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Workloads
description: This article provides an overview of the networking components you need to consider when planning your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) workloads.
ms.topic: overview
ms.subservice: aks-networking
ms.date: 03/24/2025
author: schaffererin
ms.author: schaffererin
# Customer intent: I want to understand the networking options available for my control plane, nodes, pods, and applications in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to effectively plan and optimize my workloads.
---

# Plan networking for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) workloads

This article provides an overview of the networking components you need to consider when planning your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) workloads.

## Networking components

When planning your AKS networking, you need to consider four main components: the **control plane**, **nodes**, **pods**, and **applications**.

Each component has its own networking requirements, considerations, and options. You can use the following articles to learn more about and plan for each component:

- [Plan control plane networking for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)](./plan-control-plane-networking.md)
- [Plan node networking for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)](./plan-node-networking.md)
- [Plan pod networking for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)](./plan-pod-networking.md)
- [Plan application networking for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)](./plan-application-networking.md)

Each article poses a question to help guide your planning, and then provides options, recommendations, and best practices.

## Related content

To learn more about networking in AKS, see the following articles:

- [Networking concepts for applications in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)](./concepts-network.md)
- [Kubernetes Services in AKS](./concepts-network-services.md)
- [Best practices for network connectivity and security in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)](./operator-best-practices-network.md)
