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EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service)


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Amazon EKS is a managed Kubernetes service that makes it easy to run Kubernetes on AWS without needing to install and operate your own control plane.

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How It Works​

  • EKS manages the Kubernetes control plane (API server, etcd) across multiple Availability Zones for high availability
  • You manage the worker nodes (EC2 instances or Fargate) that run your containerized applications
  • EKS runs upstream Kubernetes, so applications running on any standard Kubernetes environment are fully compatible
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Node Types​

Managed Node Groups​

  • EKS creates and manages EC2 instances for you
  • Automatic provisioning, scaling, and lifecycle management
  • Supports on-demand and spot instances
  • Updates can be applied with a single operation

Self-Managed Nodes​

  • You create and manage the EC2 instances yourself
  • Full control over the instance configuration
  • You are responsible for patching and upgrading

AWS Fargate​

  • Serverless compute for containers
  • No need to provision or manage EC2 instances
  • Each pod runs in its own isolated environment
  • Pricing is based on the vCPU and memory resources used
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Networking​

  • EKS clusters run inside a VPC
  • The Amazon VPC CNI plugin assigns a private IPv4 address from the VPC to each pod
  • Pods can communicate with other pods, services, and resources within the VPC using native VPC networking
  • Kubernetes Services of type LoadBalancer automatically provision an AWS ELB
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IAM Integration​

  • EKS integrates with IAM for cluster authentication
  • IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA) allows Kubernetes service accounts to assume IAM roles
  • Provides fine-grained access control at the pod level instead of the node level
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Add-ons​

EKS supports managed add-ons that provide operational capabilities:

  • Amazon VPC CNI: pod networking
  • CoreDNS: service discovery
  • kube-proxy: network rules on nodes
  • Amazon EBS CSI Driver: persistent storage with EBS volumes
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Pricing​

  • EKS control plane: charged per hour per cluster
  • Worker nodes: standard EC2 or Fargate pricing applies
  • EKS on Fargate: charged based on vCPU and memory resources requested by the pod
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