03. Amazon EKS
Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) is a fully managed Kubernetes service that makes it easy to run Kubernetes clusters on AWS or on-premises.
Kubernetes (often called K8s) is an open-source system for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
🧩 What is Kubernetes?
- Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform originally developed by Google.
- It manages clusters of servers that run containers (usually Docker containers).
- It decides where to run containers, how to scale them, and how they communicate.
⚙️ EKS Architecture
EKS consists of:
- Control Plane (Managed by AWS):
Manages the Kubernetes API, scheduling, and cluster operations. - Worker Nodes:
EC2 instances or Fargate tasks where your containers actually run. - Pods:
Smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes — usually runs one or more containers.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Managed Control Plane | AWS runs and scales the Kubernetes control plane for you. |
| Runs on EC2 or Fargate | Choose between self-managed EC2 instances or serverless Fargate. |
| Highly Available | Control plane runs across multiple AWS Availability Zones. |
| Integration | Works seamlessly with IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, and ECR. |
| Multi-Cloud Capability | Kubernetes is cloud-agnostic — you can run workloads across AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-prem. |
🖼️ Architecture Diagram (Conceptual)
+----------------------+
| Developers / CI-CD |
+----------+-----------+
|
v
+----------------------+
| Amazon EKS Cluster |
| (Managed Control Plane) |
+----------+-----------+
|
+----------+-----------+
| Worker Nodes |
| (EC2 or Fargate) |
+----------+-----------+
|
+----------+-----------+
| Pods / Containers |
| (Docker, etc.) |
+----------+-----------+
|
v
+----------------------+
| Amazon ECR |
| (Stores Container Images) |
+----------------------+
🧭 Flow Summary
- Developers build and push container images to Amazon ECR.
- EKS Control Plane manages the cluster and schedules pods.
- Worker Nodes (EC2 or Fargate) run these pods.
- EKS integrates with IAM, CloudWatch, and VPC for security and monitoring.
🧩 ECS vs EKS
| Feature | ECS | EKS |
|---|---|---|
| Container Orchestrator | AWS proprietary | Kubernetes (open-source) |
| Control Plane | Managed by AWS | Managed by AWS |
| Multi-Cloud | No (AWS only) | Yes (cloud-agnostic) |
| Launch Types | EC2 & Fargate | EC2 & Fargate |
| Complexity | Easier | More flexible but complex |
| Use Case | AWS-native workloads | Multi-cloud / hybrid environments |
