External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
From AWS, I use many services, but mostly my work revolves around Cloud Native, specifically Amazon EKS. Kubernetes is my area of focus and expertise. Most of my expertise is around Kubernetes and Cloud Native technologies. This is why I don't call myself a full cloud offering expert, but I mostly focus on the Kubernetes usage with other OSS solutions around K8S. It's not really a niche; it's huge.
I handle both application workloads and data ingestion workloads.
Based on my experience, the best features are backed up with extensive security that AWS allows and EKS is firmly integrated into their entire AWS cloud offering. The second feature is the ability to do what we call an in-place upgrade (upgrading an existing cluster), which is a very strong capability. Additionally, the ability to integrate other add-ons such as service mesh exists, but I don't use it heavily. The ability to use all EC2 node options, including GPU options, works quite efficiently.
The freshness of the Kubernetes versions is the most interesting aspect around CSP's Kubernetes offering; it's about how close they are to the latest and greatest of Kubernetes. GCP is the leaders in that area, but Amazon is quite close behind, which is very important.
It is definitely helpful to streamline the application deployment process.
Regarding the flexibility part, if I want to use something such as Kong/Linkerd service mesh or other solutions, most of the CSPs bind you to their own solutions rather than allow other options to be made and integrated with, and this is what I mostly miss in their part.
In terms of built-in observability in Amazon EKS, I know it's mostly about the great integration with AWS itself. When I want to integrate it with any Grafana or Prometheus solution within AWS, things work efficiently with IAM. However, when I want to cross the boundary of the CSP, that becomes an issue. Integrating some open-source solutions works, but I need to work really hard for that.
The major area for improvement I've seen involves deep diving into one CSP with no equivalent solution elsewhere. The most important consideration is about the pricing and the flexibility of moving and building a multi-cloud environment for most customers. The issue is that when CSPs try to lock you in, flexibility becomes the most critical aspect.
Amazon aims to put you in a very Amazon-centric environment, but you need to be aware when you're using Amazon EKS that you're not locked in. The major paradigm for customers with maturity in using cloud solutions is to avoid vendor lock-in. Most early adopters understand this, but the main mass, such as the banking companies I work with, aren't in the same state of mind; they need to build everything from a Cloud Native perspective with as much OSS as possible.
I am still using all these technologies.
I would rate stability as nine out of ten.
I would rate scalability for Amazon EKS as nine out of ten.
For technical support with a business plan, I would rate it as nine out of ten.
If support is not paid, I would rate it as six out of ten.
This difference is mainly because of the response time.
With business support, I rate the solution overall as nine out of ten.
Positive
Considering the pricing of the product, I think it's affordable because it's mostly about EC2 stuff, and the control plane is not too expensive, taking into account what they do behind the scenes. Managing my own stuff in an on-prem environment helps me say that it's quite inexpensive in that aspect. The control plane is cheap, but the pricing of EC2 remains the same. I mostly don't prefer using EKS Fargate - managed containerized environment because it makes the devops team dumber and allows vendor locked in; it prevents me from managing my own infrastructure - scaling and fine tuning of resources' usage. Using margate as Autopilot in GCP and other products makes me more inclined to be locked in since it provides many features without the need to think much, but eventually, that's how the CSP will lock you in.
The integrations with IAM and Elastic Load Balancing are fundamental aspects. EC2 is the most important integration, and IAM is very strong in Amazon EKS, stronger than in other clouds. However, I need to compare it regularly as this landscape changes daily. The ELB and all the load balancing capabilities are quite strong in Amazon architecture and Amazon EKS architecture as well, so it integrates efficiently. I miss the flexibility to use other options, but I understand why they integrated it so tightly into their platform.
This isn't only an Amazon issue; it also occurs on GCP and other platforms, including Azure.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10.
We are going to be using Lambda on the AWS Stack. We are migrating all our on-premises applications to AWS.
Eggplant is going to be on the AWS platform soon. We are using Lambda functions and CloudWatch for monitoring. We are also using Elasticsearch and ELK.
After we move all the applications to the cloud, we're going to move them into Amazon EKS as containers for easy management. It would be the same as how we are using EC2 instances, but in this case, we're going to move all applications to run on containers, Amazon EKS containers.
We use it for common file sharing across applications. I'm not really sure about all aspects as I didn't use it much. We just set it up to make sure all applications can read. The main capability is allowing different applications to access the same file or resources at the same time, providing collaboration capabilities.
The whole platform is easy because once you set it up, it's easy to onboard applications. It's easy to troubleshoot, run multiple clustering, log management, and perform troubleshooting. You can also install other applications, third-party applications, integration, and all that.
It helps with having dedicated nodes for certain functions. If you want to segregate the work instead of using all the nodes, you're able to align and assign which node processes specific applications, jobs, pods, or runs certain pods.
It reduces the deployment time, setup time, configuration time, and is cost-effective. It's very highly scalable.
The main challenge is at the beginning when you're still learning how to set up. The initial setup and knowing how to do it the first time can be challenging.
We had some challenges with the network pods. There were several pods that we had to try plugins for network, and the load balancing for the application we were deploying was quite difficult to manage.
The documentation should be easier to understand for beginners. It needs to be straightforward and easily grouped together because information tends to be scattered.
Some features required a lot of command line changes, especially setting up ingress and load balancers. If there could be a way to do that on a GUI, that would be easier. Having more configuration options on the UI, especially for setting up load balancers and ingress controllers, would be beneficial.
Positive
I can recommend using it to save costs and for faster deployment, better performance, security, and easy clustering. It's easy to set up, manage, and monitor because when it goes down, it's easy to identify issues. Troubleshooting is straightforward, unlike other applications where you have to do a lot of digging to find the root cause. With this solution, you can see problems directly on your dashboards.
We are migrating our services into container services. We build websites and all of our products' backends are based on Amazon EKS.
The simplicity and management portal make it a neat solution. You don't have to fiddle around with too many open source tools, as it's just a comprehensive solution.
We use the pipeline, which is critical for us to deploy automatically. This eliminates manual intervention, which is really helpful.
We initially had some issues getting the logging out of it, because what they're providing into CloudTrail is what we get. If we wanted to go in-depth, we had to deploy third-party tools. We did try the sidecar way of getting the logs. Ideally, if the platform was able to provide those kinds of valuable logs, that would be beneficial. Adding enhanced logging capabilities would be a nice improvement.
We have been using the solution for three plus years.
Time to value is good with fast deployment and very good documentation that is really helpful.
I don't personally deal with the costing part, but I think it's a fair amount. That's the only reason we're using it continuously, as otherwise we would have moved somewhere else.
The implementation was done in-house.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 9.
The use cases for the product involve provisioning of infrastructure and auto provisioning of infrastructure.
I have managed on-premise deployments in my use case with a Helm chart.
The biggest advantages of Amazon EKS include load balancing, auto scalability, and platform integration.
The solution includes automated node provisioning features.
The integration with AWS services involves platform services only.
We usually get deployed and only need to tweak the source code; however, I think the monitoring part and observability part could be improved.
I have been selling it for almost two years.
The scalability of Amazon EKS deserves a perfect rating of ten.
The technical support from Amazon deserves a rating of ten.
Positive
I would rate the ease of installing Amazon EKS in the middle area, giving it a five.
I have moved to pre-sales activity now.
I am selling Kubernetes Engine from Amazon.
I can rate Amazon EKS as nine because I just need to see some improvement.
I want to be a reference for Amazon.
The overall rating for Amazon EKS is 9 out of 10.
Our typical use case for Amazon EKS is that we have a number of applications and microservices that we host in EKS. We have a separate code base for the infrastructure platform, and the microservice team and the application team will be deploying their microservices on their own. We have configured it in a way that it could be easily accessible for developers as well as the platform engineers; we just platformize things. Earlier, I was using ECS, and the reason we use Amazon EKS is for better adaptation of Kubernetes, fitting our multi-tenant model.
The best features of Amazon EKS are that it is very plain by itself, but we use a number of optimizations, such as Carpenter for scaling and node auto-scaling, and Keda for application and microservices auto-scaling, as an event-based auto-scaler. Additionally, we use Portainer less, and for configuration, we utilize Cert Manager and Istio. It's not only Amazon EKS but a combination of various components within it.
By default, if you just install Amazon EKS, you can deploy your application, but to have it enterprise-ready, you have to configure a number of other things that will boost productivity.
Amazon EKS's deep integration with AWS services, such as IAM and elastic load balancing, has created some challenges. For example, we have something in place already, and there are some issues with enabling FIPS, which is FedRAMP compliant for the load balancers. You cannot change the SSL policy for the load balancer; I am not sure if it has been patched by AWS yet. However, apart from that, we use it effectively, and it is more flexible.
Regarding built-in observability in Amazon EKS, there is CloudWatch and CloudTrail. However, you cannot profile the applications; we can collect logs in S3, but there is no streaming solution available. Only CloudWatch exists, so we use other tools for observability and do not depend solely on CloudWatch, only relying on it for crucial workloads and infrastructure logs.
Amazon EKS can be improved by having the maintenance of Kubernetes versions managed better, as everything is handled by the Kubernetes team and possibly a separate team at AWS. We have to constantly maintain upgrades and ensure EKS add-ons are up-to-date, requiring us to upgrade the Kubernetes version and releases. They could provide a managed service in the backend instead of making customers handle it; we are currently doing it, but it's a regular activity we do per quarter.
I have around six years of experience with Amazon EKS.
Amazon EKS is a stable solution, as it is only available in AWS alone.
It is a scalable solution for us.
Before using Amazon EKS, I was using ECS. I switched from ECS to Amazon EKS because our product design changed. With numerous small services that you don't want to manage the backend infrastructure for, you can easily deploy and let it be with ECS; it is a more straightforward solution. However, considering cost with Amazon EKS, it may be pretty high, but it serves its purpose very effectively without management overhead.
If you are going with Amazon EKS, you must change your deployment strategy and develop applications for Kubernetes, writing deployments and pods, or stateful sets, which provides more flexibility. There are pros and cons to both solutions, and you have to evaluate which will suit your use case. In our situation, we had some applications in ECS as in Amazon EKS, and that was an architectural decision discussed internally within teams.
The initial setup with Amazon EKS was hard initially, but being accustomed to it now, it's not that difficult; it's relatively easy.
We have seen ROI with Amazon EKS; we have a separate team actively working on it. We have cost explorer available, and a bill forecast based on usage allows us to determine whether resources are underutilized or overutilized. You can generate reports and analyze them. I have done this for ECS, but for Amazon EKS, I haven't worked on cost savings directly, as there is a separate team responsible for that.
My experience with pricing for Amazon EKS is limited as there's a separate team for that, and I do not have much knowledge of specifics. However, the pricing is based on the instance type we use in the EKS node group, so it should cover that aspect; their pricing is generally easy to understand in terms of instances.
We are using a cloud deployment model. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon EKS an eight.
Positive
I use Amazon EKS for managing production environments. I have worked for different companies over the past three years, managing microservice applications on Amazon EKS to deploy application code to the environment, including the production environment. We use DevOps methodology to deploy these services.
The most beneficial aspect of Amazon EKS is that it helps manage the Kubernetes master node, so I don't need to maintain the master node, including tasks like upgrading. This allows me to focus on business code. If using services like Fargate, I only need to maintain my workload, simply uploading code that will be deployed to the Kubernetes cluster. This is especially beneficial for startup companies that lack the technical resources to manage the Kubernetes cluster. Furthermore, Amazon EKS allows me to utilize Kubernetes cluster-level expansion. If there’s insufficient resource on a machine, the cluster can automatically expand to add new nodes.
Although Amazon EKS is popular, there are areas for improvement. It could support more scenarios and plugins. Currently, some third-party plugins, like certain network plugins such as Weave CNI, might not be fully supported.
I have been working with Amazon EKS for more than three years.
I haven't found any performance issues with Amazon EKS so far. To avoid potential performance issues, it is important to plan resources initially, ensuring there are enough compute resources like nodes to host applications.
Amazon EKS is very scalable, but scaling can sometimes cause trouble. When Amazon EKS scales up or down, there might be occasional intermediate pod interruptions, though it's rare.
I have escalated some questions to AWS tech support before. I once faced a random issue where a pod abruptly shut down and restarted. Upon escalation, AWS helped me find the root cause. Overall, I would rate AWS tech support an eight out of ten.
Positive
I have experience with Azure AKS and some exposure to Google GKE. However, I mostly have experience with Amazon EKS.
When I first set up Amazon EKS, I faced challenges because there are different setup methods. Using the console does not align well with DevOps. It is better to use EKS CTL or Terraform's IAC tools. Configuring role permission policies is the most challenging part, ensuring Amazon EKS has access to different services or databases.
I would recommend Amazon EKS for large companies, especially banks, due to AWS's extended support for Amazon EKS, its availability, and reliability. Amazon EKS offers a strong solution as part of a full suite, but it should be integrated with services like Lambda for a complete solution. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon EKS an eight because there is still room for improvement. The overall product rating is eight out of ten.
I am working mostly on AWS infrastructure services, such as EC2, EKS, RDS, CloudFormation, IAM, and CloudWatch. I have around one year of experience with Kubernetes and have been using AWS services continuously for three years. My responsibilities include working on server storage, containerization, monitoring, and access policies.
Simplifies Kubernetes setup and management.AWS handles cluster upgrades, patches, and availability.Seamlessly integrates with AWS services like IAM, CloudWatch, and VPC.Access to advanced networking, security, and monitoring tools.EKS automatically deploys the Kubernetes control plane across multiple AWS Availability Zones for fault tolerance.
I have around one year of experience using Kubernetes with AWS.
In my project, AWS EKS has shown stability without any issues.
EKS offers excellent scalability, especially compared to Docker Swarm. The ability to scale based on requirements by deploying additional containers is a strong point for Kubernetes.
I have not contacted technical support regarding EKS.
Positive
I have explored Google Kubernetes Service in my personal projects but did not work on any other Kubernetes projects before EKS.
The initial setup is relatively straightforward when using the AWS Management Console. Setting up clusters and nodes is simplified through AWS's interface compared to on-premises. It took approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete the setup.
I do not have specific details on EKS's pricing and licensing compared to other services. However, in general, deploying in the cloud offers lower latency and high availability and reduces manual intervention and responsibility, leading to some operational efficiencies.
I have worked with Google Kubernetes Service in my personal space but have not evaluated others for professional use.
For large-scale enterprise solutions, Kubernetes is recommended due to its scalability. Despite costing considerations, EKS alleviates the burden of procedural complexities, making it suitable for enterprise-level applications.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
The primary use case for Amazon EKS involves microservices and micro frontends.
The most valuable features of Amazon EKS are its scalability features.
There is room for improvement in the interface of Amazon EKS. Additionally, they are involved in activities like pipeline management, pod checking, and error logging, which could suggest areas for further improvements.
I have more than three years of experience working with Amazon EKS.
I would rate the stability of Amazon EKS ten out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.
I would rate the scalability of Amazon EKS an eight out of ten, suggesting it has high scalability.
I do not have experience contacting Amazon's technical support.
I was not involved in the setup of Amazon EKS.
I would recommend Amazon EKS to other people for various reasons. That said, I also rate this solution seven to eight out of ten overall.
Our primary use case is related to our ecommerce solution, which is very high in terms of data in the database and products. It has one hundred thousand first line items. We developed a system connected with AWS services to translate search keywords into different languages and improve search results accuracy on our ecommerce site.
The scalability has really helped us a lot in enhancing the customer experience and ensuring quick results. The ROI is really good, especially when compared with other services on-premises.
Amazon EKS provides good support. The integration and stability are clear and reliable. The scalability is excellent, allowing us to efficiently handle customer experiences and improve operational efficiency.
Sometimes, we face minor connectivity issues. However, it depends on the applications we are using. Improvement might be needed based on different use cases.
We have been using it since 2015.
The stability of Amazon EKS is clear and reliable.
Amazon EKS's scalability is clear and has improved our operational efficiency a lot.
The customer service and support are good, and we have a paid subscription that provides priority support.
Positive
The initial setup was handled by third parties. It involved some complexities, and appropriate inputs were necessary.
We worked with a third-party team for implementation, including many developers.
We did several ROIs, which showed positive results. It's particularly beneficial compared to investing in hardware.
The licensing cost is acceptable.
Before implementing, ensure thorough research and ROI analysis. The implementation should be handled by experienced personnel.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.