How Amazon EKS Works
When you create an EKS cluster, AWS provisions and manages the Kubernetes control plane across multiple Availability Zones to ensure high availability and fault tolerance. The control plane includes the Kubernetes API server and backend persistence layer, and AWS handles its scaling, patching, and availability.
You then connect worker nodes, either EC2 instances or serverless Fargate tasks, to the cluster. These nodes are where your containerized applications run. You use the same kubectl CLI tool and Kubernetes manifests that you would in any other Kubernetes environment, with AWS managing the underlying infrastructure complexity.
This approach provides the flexibility of Kubernetes while offloading undifferentiated heavy lifting to AWS.
Key Features of Amazon EKS
One of the core strengths of Amazon EKS is its deep integration with the AWS ecosystem. It offers native support for features like IAM for authentication, VPC for network isolation, and CloudTrail for auditing. It also supports EKS Anywhere, which enables you to run Kubernetes on your infrastructure using the same EKS tooling and APIs.
EKS is certified Kubernetes-conformant, which ensures portability of workloads across any Kubernetes environment. This means applications deployed on Amazon EKS can be moved to any other standard Kubernetes cluster without modification.
Another important aspect is the support for both self-managed nodes and managed node groups, giving you the flexibility to choose how much control you want over the infrastructure layer.
EKS vs. Self-Managed Kubernetes
Running Kubernetes on your own EC2 instances requires you to manage control plane components, handle upgrades, maintain high availability, and ensure proper integration with logging, networking, and identity. With Amazon EKS, all of these responsibilities are abstracted away.
The result is:
- Reduced operational overhead
- Integrated security and monitoring
- Built-in high availability
- Faster time to deployment
This makes EKS an attractive choice for teams who want to adopt Kubernetes without investing heavily in operational expertise.
Use Cases for Amazon EKS
Amazon EKS is used across a range of industries and workloads, from stateless web applications to machine learning pipelines and financial transaction processing. It is especially useful in scenarios where:
- You need to scale containerized applications rapidly
- You want to modernize legacy applications with microservices
- You require hybrid or multi-cloud deployment strategies
- Security and compliance are a priority (e.g., in fintech or healthcare)
- DevOps teams are already using Kubernetes tooling and want a managed backend
With support for GitOps workflows, service meshes, and observability tools, EKS fits naturally into modern cloud-native application stacks.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1: How does Amazon EKS differ from ECS?
Amazon ECS is AWS’s native container orchestration service, while EKS is based on open-source Kubernetes. EKS offers broader compatibility with open-source tools and standard Kubernetes APIs, making it ideal for teams already using Kubernetes or aiming for cloud-agnostic deployments.
Q2: Is EKS only for EC2-based deployments?
No. EKS supports both EC2 and AWS Fargate, allowing you to choose between managed infrastructure and serverless compute for your container workloads.
Q3: Can I run Amazon EKS outside AWS?
Yes. With EKS Anywhere, you can deploy and operate Kubernetes clusters on your own on-premises infrastructure while maintaining consistency with AWS-hosted EKS clusters.
Q4: Does Amazon EKS support multi-region deployments?
While each EKS cluster is regional, you can deploy multiple clusters across regions and use AWS services like Route 53, CloudFront, and Global Accelerator to manage multi-region architectures.
Q5: Is Amazon EKS secure by default?
Yes. Amazon EKS automatically applies security patches to the control plane and integrates with IAM, VPC, and encryption services. However, you are still responsible for securing your workloads and worker nodes.
