Amazon EKS Anywhere FAQs

Amazon EKS Anywhere simplifies Kubernetes cluster management through the automation of undifferentiated heavy lifting such as infrastructure setup and Kubernetes cluster lifecycle operations in on-premises and edge environments. Unlike Amazon EKS, Amazon EKS Anywhere is a customer-managed product and customers are responsible for cluster lifecycle operations and maintenance of Amazon EKS Anywhere clusters. Amazon EKS Anywhere is built on the Kubernetes sub-project Cluster API (CAPI) and supports a range of infrastructure including VMware vSphere, bare metal, Nutanix, Apache CloudStack, and AWS Snow. Amazon EKS Anywhere can be run in air-gapped environments and offers optional integrations with regional AWS services for observability and identity management. To receive support for Amazon EKS Anywhere and access to AWS-vended Kubernetes add-ons, you can purchase Amazon EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscriptions.

Customers operating Kubernetes clusters on-premises must select, integrate, and test multiple third-party tools and purchase separate support contracts for each tool. It requires time and resources to track the latest updates and security patches for every tool while ensuring changes do not break compatibility with other tools. This leads to complexity, fragmented support options, and inconsistencies between the cloud and on-premises Kubernetes clusters that make it hard to manage applications across environments. With Amazon EKS Anywhere, you have Kubernetes operational tooling that is consistent with Amazon EKS and is optimized to simplify cluster installation and management required to operate Kubernetes on-premises. Amazon EKS Anywhere uses Amazon EKS Distro, the same Kubernetes distribution deployed by Amazon EKS, allowing you to create clusters with the latest software updates, security patches, and version release cycle as Amazon EKS in the cloud. You can leverage support agreements with AWS for Amazon EKS Anywhere deployments so you can consolidate and reduce your support costs.

Amazon EKS Distro is a Kubernetes distribution of the same open source components and dependencies deployed by Amazon EKS. Amazon EKS Distro includes binaries and containers of open source Kubernetes, etcd, networking, and storage plugins, all tested for compatibility. Amazon EKS Distro provides extended support for Kubernetes versions after community support expires. You can securely access Amazon EKS Distro releases from GitHub or within AWS via Amazon S3 and Amazon ECR for a common source of releases and updates.

EKS Connector is a software agent that runs on a Kubernetes cluster and enables the cluster to register with the Amazon EKS console. You can connect any conformant Kubernetes cluster to the Amazon EKS console through the EKS Connector, including Amazon EKS Anywhere clusters running on-premises, self-managed clusters on EC2, and other Kubernetes clusters running outside AWS. Once connected, you can use the Amazon EKS console to view all connected clusters and the underlying Kubernetes resources, regardless of where the cluster is running.

Amazon EKS provides an integrated dashboard in the AWS console for connecting, visualizing, and troubleshooting Kubernetes clusters and applications. You can leverage the Amazon EKS console to view all of your Kubernetes clusters (including Amazon EKS Anywhere clusters) running anywhere through the EKS Connector.

Amazon EKS Anywhere supports different types of infrastructure including VMWare vSphere, bare metal, AWS Snowball Edge, Apache CloudStack, and Nutanix. Amazon EKS Anywhere provides Bottlerocket, a Linux-based open-source operating system built by AWS, as the default node operating system. You can alternatively use Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the node operating system.

No. Unlike Amazon EKS in AWS Cloud, Amazon EKS Anywhere is a customer-managed product that runs on customer-managed infrastructure. You are responsible for cluster lifecycle operations and maintenance of your Amazon EKS Anywhere clusters and the cluster infrastructure capacity.

Amazon EKS Anywhere can run connected to an AWS Region or disconnected from an AWS Region, including in air-gapped environments. If you run connected to an AWS Region, you can view your clusters in the Amazon EKS console with the EKS Connector and can optionally use AWS IAM for cluster authentication, AWS IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA), cert-manager with Amazon Certificate Manager, the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry collector with Amazon Managed Prometheus, and FluentBit with Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

No, Amazon EKS Anywhere is not supported on AWS Cloud. If you plan to run Kubernetes on AWS Cloud, we strongly recommend using Amazon EKS.

No, Amazon EKS Anywhere is not supported on AWS Outposts. If you plan to run Kubernetes on AWS Outposts, we strongly recommend using Amazon EKS on AWS Outposts.

For pricing information, visit the Amazon EKS Anywhere pricing page.

Go to the Amazon EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscription section of the Amazon EKS console. In the console, select your preferred term (1-year or 3-year). Then, specify the license quantity, configure tags and automatic renewal. Review the pending purchase. When the purchase is submitted, you can review licenses associated with your subscription in the console, accept the license grants with AWS License Manager, apply the licenses to your Amazon EKS Anywhere clusters, and access Amazon EKS Anywhere Curated Packages. For more information, reference the Amazon EKS Anywhere documentation.

Yes. An AWS Enterprise Support or AWS Enterprise On-Ramp Support Plan is a prerequisite for purchasing Amazon EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscriptions.

You can purchase Amazon EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscriptions for a 1-year or 3-year term. The total subscription cost is $24,000 per cluster license for a 1-year term, and $18,000 per cluster license for a 3-year term. You are billed monthly during the term, and the monthly charge is $2,000 per cluster license for a 1-year term, and $1500 per cluster license per year for a 3-year term.

No, Amazon EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscriptions purchased manually before October 2023 cannot be viewed or managed through the Amazon EKS console, APIs, and AWS CLI.

Yes, you can cancel your subscription within the first 7 days of purchase by filing an AWS Support ticket. When you cancel your subscription within the first 7 days, you are not charged for the subscription. To cancel your subscription outside of the 7-day time period, contact your AWS account team.

Yes, you can configure auto-renewal during subscription creation or at any time during your subscription term. When auto-renewal is enabled for your subscription, the subscription and associated licenses will be automatically renewed for the term of the existing subscription (1-year or 3-years). The 7-day cancellation period does not apply to renewals. You do not need to reapply licenses to your Amazon EKS Anywhere clusters when subscriptions are automatically renewed.

You can edit the auto-renewal and tags configurations for your subscription with the Amazon EKS console, APIs, and AWS CLI. To change the term or license quantity for a subscription, you must create a new subscription.

When subscriptions expire, licenses associated with the subscription can no longer be used for new support tickets, access to Amazon EKS Anywhere Curated Packages is revoked, and you are no longer billed for the subscription. Support tickets created during the active subscription period will continue to be serviced. You will receive emails 3 months, 1 month, and 1 week before subscriptions expire, and an alert is presented in the Amazon EKS console for approaching expiration dates. Subscriptions can be viewed with the Amazon EKS console, APIs, and AWS CLI after expiration.

For regional availability for subscription purchases, reference the Amazon EKS Anywhere documentation.

If you need to pay upfront for subscriptions, please contact your AWS account team.

Free trial access to EKS Anywhere Curated Packages is available upon request. Free trial access to EKS Anywhere Curated Packages does not include troubleshooting support for your EKS Anywhere clusters or access to extended support for Kubernetes versions. Contact your AWS account team for more information.

Yes, reference the Amazon EKS Anywhere documentation for instructions on how to share access to curated packages with other AWS accounts in your organization.