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What is Amazon EKS Auto Mode?

Amazon EKS Auto Mode streamlines Kubernetes cluster management by automating infrastructure provisioning, compute instance selection, resource scaling, and core add-on management. It reduces operational overhead, allowing users to focus on application development rather than cluster management. Key features include automated compute, auto scaling, upgrades, load balancing, storage, and networking.

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What is Chkk Upgrade Copilot?

Chkk Upgrade Copilot is your trusted expert that provides a comprehensive set of recommendations, stateful workflows, and safety tooling to help you upgrade cloud substrate, control plane, nodes, add-ons, and applications in your Kubernetes infrastructure. Chkk Upgrade Copilot gives the peace of mind that your upgrades are verified to succeed, while saving months of effort spent on preparing, staging, and executing upgrades.

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Do EKS Auto Mode clusters need Chkk Upgrade Copilot?

While EKS Auto Mode automates many aspects of Kubernetes cluster management, it does not eliminate the need for tools like Chkk Upgrade Copilot in all cases. Here’s a breakdown of which Auto Mode clusters benefit most from Chkk Upgrade Copilot:

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EKS Auto Mode clusters that NEED Chkk Upgrade Copilot:

  • Clusters with Add-ons that aren’t EKS Managed: EKS Auto Mode does not manage all add-ons. You are responsible for installing, managing, and upgrading add-ons like Istio, Cert-Manager, Nginx, ArgoCD, External Secrets Operator, External DNS, CrossPlane, KEDA, Prometheus, Alertmanager, Fluentd, Grafana, Loki, Keycloak, Contour, Cilium, Calico, and Argo Rollouts. Chkk Upgrade Copilot helps verify compatibility and uncover hidden dependencies before upgrades.
  • Clusters Requiring Custom AMIs: Auto Mode only supports EKS AMIs. If you need custom AMIs, you won’t be able to use Auto Mode.
  • Clusters with Specific CNI Requirements: EKS Auto Mode restricts the underlying CNI to AWS’ VPC CNI plug-in. If your organization requires a different CNI (e.g., Calico, Cilium) for enhanced observability or advanced networking policies, Auto Mode may not be suitable.
  • Clusters with API Deprecations and Application Dependencies: You are still responsible for migrating applications off deprecated APIs and fixing misconfigured Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs) before an Auto Mode upgrade. Chkk helps ensure application teams update workloads and PDBs before upgrades.
  • Clusters that must maintain Compliance and Improve Security Posture: Chkk maintains an accurate inventory of all clusters and add-ons, alerting you to existing and upcoming End-of-Life (EOL) software so you perform timely upgrades, avoid vulnerabilities, ensure vendor support, and save significant costs.
  • When you want to Delegate and Parallelize Work: Chkk’s detailed Upgrade Plans standardize workflows, making it easy to delegate tasks to any team member confidently, simplify reuse and share knowledge, reduce the chances of human errors and omissions, enabling your experts to focus on what they do best.
  • Organizations that want Standardization of Workflows, Knowledge Sharing, and Reuse of Best Practices: Chkk ensures that institutional knowledge is retained and accessible, which is crucial during reorganizations or team changes, simplifies audits, enhances safety, and reduces time-to-find knowledge, minimizing context switching, and improving productivity.

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EKS Auto Mode clusters that may NOT need Chkk Upgrade Copilot:

  • Simple Container Workloads: If you are running simple containerized workloads without Datapath or Stateful Add-ons, you might not need Chkk Upgrade Copilot.
  • Clusters Running CI Jobs: Clusters running CI jobs that do not require special care and attention to add-on dependencies may not need Chkk.

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Summary

  • Use Chkk Upgrade Copilot with Auto Mode when clusters have non-EKS add-ons. EKS Auto Mode does not manage the maintenance and upgrades of these add-ons, so Chkk is crucial in these scenarios.
  • Consider Chkk when custom AMIs or specific CNI requirements are present. Auto Mode might not accommodate these needs.
  • Chkk is valuable because organizations are responsible for addressing API deprecations and application dependencies. Chkk can assist in ensuring timely updates of workloads and Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs).
  • If compliance and security are paramount, Chkk assists by providing an inventory of clusters and add-ons, and alerting to end-of-life software.
  • Chkk is helpful when you want to standardize workflows to enable task delegation, knowledge sharing, error reduction, and improved productivity.

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