Discover Amazon EKS Auto Mode: Simplifies Kubernetes with automation, reducing management duties for efficient deployments

In this post, we explore the latest Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) Auto Mode features that enhance security, network control, and performance for enterprise Kubernetes deployments. These new capabilities address critical operational challenges including capacity management, network segmentation, enterprise PKI integration, and comprehensive encryption while maintaining the automated cluster management that makes EKS Auto Mode transformative for development teams.

<p>Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) now monitors the health of the EC2 instances (nodes) in EKS clusters for Kubernetes-specific health issues and automatically takes action to repair them if they become unhealthy. This helps you achieve higher availability for your Kubernetes applications and reduces the operational overhead required to keep cluster infrastructure performing optimally.<br> <br> Managing the nodes where Kubernetes applications run to ensure they remain resilient to errors can be challenging and operationally intensive. This launch streamlines cluster infrastructure maintenance by continuously monitoring the health of the nodes within an EKS cluster, automatically detecting health issues and replacing nodes with issues when they arise. You can enable this feature’s health monitoring and repair capabilities by installing the new EKS node monitoring agent add-on in new or existing EKS clusters and then enabling node auto-repair in the EKS managed node group APIs or AWS Console. EKS Auto Mode comes with both the node monitoring agent and node auto-repair enabled.<br> <br> EKS node health monitoring and auto-repair is available today at no additional cost in all <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/regional-product-services/" target="_blank">AWS Regions</a>, except AWS GovCloud (US) and China Regions.<br> <br> To learn more and get started, visit the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/eks/" target="_blank">Amazon EKS product page</a> or <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/node-health.html" target="_blank">Amazon EKS User Guide for node health monitoring and repair</a>.<br> &nbsp;</p>

This blog post was co-authored by Alex Kestner, Sr Product Manager – EKS; Todd Neal, Sr. Software Engineer – EKS; Neelendra Bhandari, Sr Software Dev Manager – EKS; and Sai Vennam, Principal Specialist Solutions Architect. At re:Invent 2024, we launched Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) Auto Mode, a new feature that provides a production-ready, […]

In this post, we explore how KubeArmor, an open source container-aware security enforcement system, enhances the security posture of containerized workloads running on EKS Auto Mode clusters. Although EKS Auto Mode significantly streamlines cluster management by automating control plane and node operations, securing the workloads running within the cluster remains a critical user responsibility.

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In this post, we show you how to swiftly deploy inference workloads on EKS Auto Mode and demonstrate key features that streamline GPU management. We walk through a practical example by deploying open weight models from OpenAI using vLLM, while showing best practices for model deployment and maintaining operational efficiency.

Today we are delighted to introduce the Amazon Elastic Kubernetes (Amazon EKS) Auto Mode&nbsp;hands-on workshop. You can run this workshop in your own AWS account, or register to attend one of our AWS hosted events. EKS Auto Mode, a new capability to streamline Kubernetes operations on AWS, was made&nbsp;generally available at re:Invent 2024. Eliminating the […]

In this post, we explore how to build highly available Kubernetes applications using Amazon EKS Auto Mode by implementing critical features like Pod Disruption Budgets, Pod Readiness Gates, and Topology Spread Constraints. Through various test scenarios including pod failures, node failures, AZ failures, and cluster upgrades, we demonstrate how these implementations maintain service continuity and maximize uptime in EKS Auto Mode environments.

<p>Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) Auto Mode is now available in the AWS GovCloud (US-East) and (US-West) regions. This feature fully automates compute, storage, and networking management for Kubernetes clusters. Additionally, EKS Auto Mode now supports FIPS-validated cryptographic modules through its Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to help customers meet FedRAMP compliance requirements.<br> <br> EKS Auto Mode enables organizations to get Kubernetes conformant managed compute, networking, and storage for any new or existing EKS cluster. Its AMIs include FIPS-compliant cryptographic modules to help meet federal security standards for regulated workloads. EKS Auto Mode manages OS patching and updates, and strengthens security posture through ephemeral compute, making it ideal for workloads that require high security standards. It also dynamically scales EC2 instances based on demand, helping optimize compute costs while maintaining application availability.<br> <br> Amazon EKS Auto Mode is now available in AWS GovCloud (US-East) and (US-West). You can enable EKS Auto Mode in any EKS cluster running Kubernetes 1.29 and above with no upfront fees or commitments—you pay for the management of the compute resources provisioned, in addition to your regular EC2 costs.<br> <br> To get started with EKS Auto Mode, visit the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/eks/" target="_blank">Amazon EKS product page</a>. For additional details, see the<a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/eks-auto-mode.html" target="_blank"> Amazon EKS User Guide</a> and <a href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/latest/UserGuide/whatis.html" target="_blank">AWS GovCloud (US) documentation</a>.</p>

v2.13.3 (requires Kubernetes 1.22+) Documentation Image: public.ecr.aws/eks/aws-load-balancer-controller:v2.13.3 Thanks to all our contributors! 😊 Action required 🚨 🚨 🚨 We’ve updated the Gateway API relevant LBC CRDs LoadBalancerConfigurations and TargetGroupConfigurations Make sure to update the CRD definition in your cluster. If you're upgrading the charts using helm upgrade, you need to update CRDs manually: kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-sigs/aws-load-balancer-controller/refs/heads/main/config/crd/gateway/gateway-crds.yaml What’s new • We are pleased to announce the (Beta) of Layer 4 (L4) routing support for the Kubernetes Gateway API within the AWS Load Balancer Controller (LBC). This significant enhancement allows users to provision and manage AWS Network Load Balancers (NLBs) for TCP, UDP, and TLS traffic directly from their Kubernetes clusters, leveraging the powerful and extensible Gateway API. The LBC now fully supports the GatewayClass ,Gateway, TCPRoute, UDPRoute, and TLSRoute resources from the Gateway API. Please refer L4Routing for more info. Enhancement and Fixes • Upgraded Secuirty group deletion to be more responsive. • Reduced the duplicated DescribeTargetGroups calls to enhance performance. • Docs updates Changelog since v2.13.2 • [feat: gw api]Adding docs for L4 routing for gateway api (#4232, @shraddhabang) • Add ingress class example (#4221, @wweiwei-li) • tg / lb conf finalizers (#4230, @zac-nixon) • Update to go 1.24.4 (#4231, @zac-nixon) • add ip target tests for gateway api(#4227, @zac-nixon) • [feat: gw api] Fix edge cases for lb config finalizers (#4225, @shraddhabang) • refactor deferred reconciler to always process tgb on start up (#4224, @zac-nixon) • [gw api] Add TG config logic to find and create user specified TG config.(4220, @zac-nixon) • [feat gw-api]implement finalizer (#4217, @shuqz) • [bug fix] Make SG deletion more responsive(#4216,@zac-nixon) • [feat: gw api][bug fix] generate sg rules using listener protocols (#4198, @shraddhabang) • docs: update security_groups.md tabulation (#4193, @mtulio) • fix: Failing tests in ipv6 cluster(#4211, @wweiwei-li) • [feat: gw api] Fix the auto cert discovery logic for secure listeners on gateways (#4214, @shraddhabang) • [feat gw-api]handle resolvedRef for route status update and update ho…(#4210, @shuqz) • Reduce duplicated DescribeTargetGroups calls(#4208, @wweiwei-li) • [feat gw-api]bugfix and prevent backward generation route status update(##4206, @shuqz) • [gw api] Add Gateway API integ framework(#4205, @zac-nixon) • Add EKS Auto Mode considerations to documentation(#4196, Andrey Butenko) • docs: Change AWS Cognito Domain tip to warning(#4195, @ragul-engg) • [feat gw api] add support for infra labels + annotations(#4191, @zac-nixon) • [feat: gw api] support gw deletion(#4192, @zac-nixon) • Fix prefixListIDs typos(#4187, @gdlx)