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reviewer2543025 - PeerSpot reviewer
Kubernetes Admin at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Simplify and speed up cluster management and handles scaling well
Pros and Cons
  • "Application deployment is more automatic."
  • "It's difficult to connect to some of the clusters."

What is our primary use case?

We use EKS in our company to run containerized applications. I work in the container ecosystem team, and we manage EKS clusters for our developer teams so they don't have to. We provide them with the necessary tools to run on top of the cluster.

EKS helps us simplify and speed up cluster management. We don't have to take care of cluster updates; we just initiate the update, and AWS handles it. The same goes for some of the AWS-managed add-ons.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest improvement is that we now have more time. When we shifted the responsibility of cluster management and updates to AWS, we had more time to develop solutions that make life easier for the developers. 

Application deployment is more automatic. They don't have to issue cluster commands; they can simply do a commit into our internal GitHub Enterprise, and our tooling will deploy or update the application on the cluster. That's probably the biggest benefit because we had time to develop such solutions.

What is most valuable?

From my personal perspective, I think it's good that we can use AWS CLI to manage the cluster, and that way, we can automate the work via scripts. Of course, the way that we just issue a command and AWS handles the work, like with cluster updates, is also valuable. That's probably one of the reasons why we use it.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes I have trouble because, in our corporate network, there are various networks, etcetera. It's difficult to connect to some of the clusters, and it's easier to go through the UI when troubleshooting something. At some points, the UI seems limited to me with the functions it provides. 

You can get information like what kind of port is running on the cluster, but I haven't really explored the UI so far, so it's difficult for me to see the logs, for example. Or sometimes, you are only limited to the basic Kubernetes things. 

We have certain customizations installed in the cluster, and for that, you really have to use kubectl from the command line. You are not able to use the EKS UI to list certain custom resources. So maybe there can be some kind of improvement, but maybe it's just me that I haven't really explored the UI that much.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it since February. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I don't really remember any issue with EKS, the product from AWS as is. There can be some issues when there is a bigger outage on the AWS side; it's either some kind of network outage when we cannot reach AWS itself or something similar, but I wouldn't blame EKS for it.

When we had problems with the cluster itself, I think it was more about some issue that either we as a team introduced by human error, from some configuration mistake, or our customers sometimes made mistakes. And maybe there are issues when the application running on top of EKS somehow gets into some loop or something and then doesn't work correctly, but I wouldn't really attribute that to EKS.

Because I've been in the team for a short amount of time, I don't really remember any big issue that was caused by EKS itself in the past six months at least.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. We use the cluster autoscaler tool that spins up a new node when we need more, and that works nicely. So I think from the scalability point of view, it's okay. 

In the last six months, I don't really see any issue with scalability. We run around one hundred clusters. Some of them are quite small, really just the basics where we are running free master nodes in the free availability zones, just to make things according to best practices. So, really a minimal cluster. 

And there are also some really big clusters with over a hundred worker nodes. Overall, I think it's quite big. And with EKS, we are able to manage it quite well.

How are customer service and support?

I have some experience with AWS support, and it was good. We were trying to solve something with one of the add-ons, and I think we solved it within a couple of days. We even had a call with one of the support engineers. So I think it worked out well. 

The issue was regarding one of the AWS-managed add-ons. I remember that we clearly had some kind of misunderstanding between us and technical support, and it seemed like either we were not able to explain it correctly or the guy wasn't able to understand us. But I remember that somehow we solved that issue. So at the end, it was okay.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The deployment process of EKS was done before I joined the team.

For me, EKS UI is nice, and it was quite easy for me to get familiar with. I find the AWS CLI quite nice to use as well. I've been working in IT for some time now, so I have some level of experience. I guess these things come sort of naturally to me now, such as how to use the tools that are provided by companies. It's usually no issue for me.

From the maintenance point of view, I don't know much about how things are backed up, etcetera. I think that is exactly why we use EKS because we don't really have to take care of cluster backups. We can simply issue a command, and the cluster will update. If we were to do cluster updates manually, it would be more work. We would have to update the worker nodes and then update the master node one by one. AWS now handles all of this. So I think from the maintenance point of view, it's great, and that's why we use it because it's now much more simple and faster for us.

What was our ROI?

We still see the benefits of using this solution because we are using it. And we actually plan to transfer all our workloads to EKS if things were ideal. But for some legal reasons, we still have to manage some on-premise clusters, but I think the benefits are there.

What other advice do I have?

If you have the money, I would recommend the EKS product to other users who are looking into implementing it. It's a good tool. It really takes some of the management burden off your back.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Easy to set up and upgrade
Pros and Cons
  • "The most important aspect of Amazon EKS is that it is easy to set up and very easy to upgrade."
  • "Amazon EKS provides very minimum information during the upgrade of the node group."

What is our primary use case?

We run all our microservices across the globe with Amazon EKS. We also use it for development, testing, and maintenance.

How has it helped my organization?

In the past, we have faced challenges with scalability and maintenance while running clusters. Amazon EKS is very easy to maintain. So it allows us to focus on our deployment.

What is most valuable?

The most important aspect of Amazon EKS is that it is easy to set up and very easy to upgrade. So we can focus on maintaining and deploying our microservice. It is also easy to scale and easy to monitor.

What needs improvement?

Amazon EKS provides very minimum information during the upgrade of the node group. When the upgrade doesn't work well, it doesn't give enough information for us to troubleshoot. So it would be great if Amazon EKS provided more information in such cases. 

Amazon EKS should enable some AIOps.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon EKS for the past three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

As a Kubernetes-managed platform, it is pretty stable. You can stabilize the new version when it is available in AWS.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is easy to set up, and the Amazon EKS control plane accommodates scaling.

How are customer service and support?

Whenever we experience any challenges, we always get a very fast response from AWS support. We are happy with the support provided so far.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We shifted to Amazon EKS because we faced some issues with our old system on OpenShift. OpenShift also has a high license price as compared to Amazon EKS.

How was the initial setup?

We had some challenges at the beginning. It took us a few weeks to get one cluster up. Later, we improved our approach by using Terraform to manage it. Now, we can set up many clusters within one or two hours. We use around 60 clusters now.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it through our in-house team.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Amazon EKS is very cost-effective. I rate the pricing a ten on a scale of one to ten.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Other teams in the organization are trying to explore Google Kubernetes Engine. However, for our team, AWS is a lot easier. Our team might not move to other cloud providers because running Terraform is very useful for us.

What other advice do I have?

In the internal cluster, we have four hundred people working with Amazon EKS. We have a lot of customers running billions of transactions. Overall, I rate Amazon EKS a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Amazon EKS
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon EKS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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ASHOK YADAV - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Allows you to create and deploy multiple microservices and manage containers
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the scalability they're currently providing. Integration was very easy. It was a good experience."
  • "The connectivity could be better."

What is our primary use case?

Amazon EKS is basically a model provided by Amazon that allows you to create and deploy multiple microservices and manage containers. Once the Kubernetes is installed, we can directly create the container, set up ports, and set up new services. We currently have Java containers running.

We have more than 500 people using this solution. We are on version 21.

What is most valuable?

I like the scalability they're currently providing. Integration was very easy. It was a good experience. 

What needs improvement?

The connectivity could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon EKS for more than two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable enough. We have had network connectivity issues twice. We weren't able to figure out what went wrong there, and it caused a problem initially. When we restarted it, it began working again.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good.

How are customer service and support?

We have called technical support a couple of times. We had an issue with integration with Lambda. But we took the help of AWS and it was resolved.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have also used the IBM private cloud, but it wasn't user friendly.

How was the initial setup?

Setup can take half an hour to an hour.

For deployment, our technical team was made up of 15 people.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My company paid for the license. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

I would definitely recommend this solution. It's a very good application, and the scalability is very good.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director - DevOps and Infrastructure at INTIGRAL
Real User
Improves application resiliency
Pros and Cons
  • "Break down your application into small modules to improve resiliency"

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case for Amazon EKS is for running production workloads. The microservices-based modules are broken down and then hosted using EKS.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature to us is orchestration when it comes to deploying. The main ideology behind Kubernetes is that you are breaking down your application into smaller modules. Instead of having a monolithic application, you make it a microservices-based module. Using an e-commerce website as an example, we would break down login's as a single module, registration as a single module and then in the event of an issue one does not impact the other. 

    With your small modules, in most cases, they share a backend, and that's how at the service layer you connect them by using an API gateway or a service mesh. This ensures scalability and they don't have any dependencies when it comes to failures. This means you can easily scale and optimize. 

    What needs improvement?

    For now I can't suggest any improvements or additional features, the features we currently use we are very happy with. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using Amazon EKS for 8-9 months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The Kubernetes solution has been very stable for us, there are no issues to report on that aspect. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The beauty of Kubernetes is that you can scale it. You just have to define the workload and the scalability capability is managed itself. We just need to define the number of bots or services we want to run and it manages to scale up when needed. 

    How are customer service and support?

    We have found Amazon to be quite responsive. We have experienced some minor issues and the response time was good. 

    How was the initial setup?

    With regards to setup, you would need to have a basic understanding of Kubernetes and how it works before you start deploying your production workloads. Once we started working with Kubernetes and got hands-on experience there was not much hassle to roll out to production workloads.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There is no up front licensing cost, as this is a cloud based solution you pay-as-you-go.

    What other advice do I have?

    The advice I would offer on Kubernetes is with the configuration of your applications. Some are compute-extensive, some are compute-optimized. If you don't configure this correctly it can lead to deadlocks. The compute power has to be enough when it comes to your applications. Some applications need more memory, for example, e-commerce sites need a good response time. In this example, you would want to configure a memory-based application. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1426713 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Application Development Specialist - Technical Architect at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Has good scalability features
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable features of Amazon EKS are its scalability features."
    • "I would rate the stability of Amazon EKS ten out of ten, indicating it is highly stable."
    • "There is room for improvement in the interface of Amazon EKS."
    • "There is room for improvement in the interface of Amazon EKS."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case for Amazon EKS involves microservices and micro frontends.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features of Amazon EKS are its scalability features.

    What needs improvement?

    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.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have more than three years of experience working with Amazon EKS.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I would rate the stability of Amazon EKS ten out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I would rate the scalability of Amazon EKS an eight out of ten, suggesting it has high scalability.

    How are customer service and support?

    I do not have experience contacting Amazon's technical support.

    How was the initial setup?

    I was not involved in the setup of Amazon EKS.

    What other advice do I have?

    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.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
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    Tiezer Melo - PeerSpot reviewer
    DevOps Engineer at Out.Cloud
    MSP
    Top 5
    Provides an easy way to create clusters without having to manage the control plane separately
    Pros and Cons
    • "It's the best option for medium or large enterprises."
    • "There is room for improvement in stability. I faced some problems with the App."

    What is our primary use case?

    It's a great service because we can do a lot of things using it. It's easy to create clusters and services in pods there.

    So, the main purpose is to create clusters and services and define some pods there.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We reduced the cost by using one cluster instead of using different services and different virtual machines in a client. So, Amazon EKS helped our organization reduce costs. 

    What is most valuable?

    This is the way we can create a cluster because we don't need to pay attention to the control plane. We only need to deploy the services in the worker nodes and configure some configurations, easy configurations, and the cluster is done to be published.

    Basically, AWS provides all features that we have prepared.

    What needs improvement?

    There is room for improvement in stability. I faced some problems with the App. The problem is actually the app, with the different teams fixing it.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for 18 months. I work on different projects. Basically, we create a structure and per clients, and we move to another project. So we did different projects for how long of the year.

    We are currently using version 1.24, but we are migrating to the latest version, which is 1.28.70.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. I faced some problems with the App. The problem is actually the app with the different teams fixing it, but I would say the Kubernetes - it's ten. The service is ten. But if everything is considered, it's eight.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. It is perfect. Moreover, more than one hundred users have access per hour. 

    We use this solution every day. Thus, we use the solution to its maximum potential. 

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did the research for Azure, but all the structure and other resources were applied in AWS, so we kept it in the same provider.

    We also used a local structure, but we're at a short time. And the infrastructure had already been done. I only need to support the application. It's full.

    How was the initial setup?

    The thing that takes more time to be constructed with the code is minutes and hours to provide the EKS code, but with the structure is really fast.

    Basically, it used the code. They used the TerraForm code because we work with ESA, and, basically, the most important part for us is the code.

    What about the implementation team?

    We used the help of a third party, like, the partners of Amazon. 

    We required four people for the deployment process. However, the maintenance depends on the number of clusters and resources. So, two people are enough for the maintenance of the solution. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I would rate the pricing model a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is very expensive.

    It was rather expensive; compared to GCP and Azure, it's a little more expensive. The price can be a problem for small-sized businesses. 

    There are no additional costs to the standard license. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    So I work as a DevOps engineer. But basically, using TerraForm or other tools like that, I never worked with another provider as Google and Microsoft. So, basically, I use AWS. 

    Actually, there are a lot of reports that I use every day. So we use tools related to that, like load balancers, ECRs, and EKS— so different resource things.

    What other advice do I have?

    It's a great service. Some services are more expensive compared to other providers. But in general, it's the best option for medium or large enterprises.

    Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Amazon Web Services (AWS)
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Hari Rajendiran - PeerSpot reviewer
    Devops Engineer at Altimetrik (Deployed at FORD)
    Real User
    Top 10
    Though a great tool that supports autoscaling, it needs to consider improvements in its initial setup phase
    Pros and Cons
    • "The stability of the solution is good."
    • "Amazon EKS is not a solution that can be fully managed through automation, making it an area of concern where improvement is required."

    What is our primary use case?

    The solution can be described as a microservice, and it is also a fully containerized platform. The solution can be described as a stateless service. Amazon EKS can be a great solution for deployments since it supports autoscaling and keeps scaling as well. In my company, we only pay for the resources we use, and owing to such a concept, we use the solution in our company.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it allows developers to shift applications. The value of the solution is good when compared to tools deployed on an on-premises model.

    What needs improvement?

    If you compare Amazon EKS with OpenShift, the latter provides users with a solution that is fully managed through automation. Amazon EKS is not a solution that can be fully managed through automation, making it an area of concern where improvement is required. Amazon EKS should be manageable through a web portal or web interface, a feature that exists in OpenShift.

    Amazon EKS should be available as a fully managed service since we use Helm chart to deploy the product in our company right now.

    The initial setup phase of the product is an area where certain improvements can be made.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    As a consultant, I use Amazon EKS, depending on the project requirements of my company. I have used Amazon EKS within the past twelve months. I am a customer of Amazon.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability of the solution is good. I can't comment much on the stability part of the solution since there is a different team in my company that takes care of the maintenance part of the solution.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I won't be able to comment on the scalability of the solution. I haven't had any reasons to deal with the product's scalability options.

    How are customer service and support?

    I did not meet with any issues when trying to connect with the solution's technical support. At times, there may be some delays in response from the technical support team. I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    In the past, I was using another solution. I switched to Amazon from a different solution. Amazon's support is good. Amazon also provides a number of managed services.

    How was the initial setup?

    I rate the initial setup phase of the product a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

    The initial setup phase of the product was a bit difficult.

    The solution is deployed on Jenkins and CI/CD.

    What about the implementation team?

    The product's initial setup phase was taken care of by one of our company's in-house teams.

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate the overall product a seven out of ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Mustafa Husny - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior System Engineer at Techline-eg
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Provides good performance and used for testing and learning purposes
    Pros and Cons
    • "The solution's performance is good."
    • "The solution's graphical interface is not the best."

    What is our primary use case?

    I used Amazon EKS for my personal learning purposes. I used the solution to learn how to initiate and upgrade the Kubernetes cluster for testing in my own lab.

    What is most valuable?

    Amazon EKS is a good tool for my testing and learning purposes. The solution's performance is good. It is a good solution for my learning and my labs.

    What needs improvement?

    The solution's graphical interface is not the best. It could be better in terms of enabling some integrations or managing the configuration.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Amazon EKS for one or two years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I rate the solution’s stability ten out of ten.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Amazon EKS is good when it comes to scaling the cluster, adding, removing, or upgrading the nodes. Upgrading the machine's resources is easy.

    How are customer service and support?

    Amazon EKS has a big community, and support is really good.

    How was the initial setup?

    The solution's initial setup was easy.

    What was our ROI?

    If the deployment fails, you're still up and running. Scaling up or down can be done with zero downtime.

    What other advice do I have?

    Some of the Kubernetes clusters were on Amazon, GCP, and Azure. I used most of them on-premises. I installed the Kubernetes cluster in my own environment.

    Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    Download our free Amazon EKS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: December 2024
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    Download our free Amazon EKS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.