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EKS Architecture

Managed Kubernetes with Karpenter autoscaling and GitOps deployment via ArgoCD.

Problems this Architecture solves​

  • Reduces the cost and latency of static node-group sizing by provisioning compute based on actual pod demand.
  • Standardizes Kubernetes operations, addons, and ingress patterns across teams and workloads.
  • Improves deployment consistency by connecting cluster state to Git-managed manifests and reconciliation.

Key Features​

  • Managed Control Plane: AWS manages Kubernetes control plane (API server, etcd)
  • Karpenter: Just-in-time node provisioning based on pod requirements
  • GitOps: ArgoCD syncs manifests from Git to cluster
  • AWS Load Balancer Controller: Provisions ALB/NLB from Ingress resources
  • Service Mesh: Optional Istio/Linkerd for observability
  • Auto-Scaling: HPA for pods, Karpenter for nodes

Node Groups​

general​

  • Instance Type: m6i.large (2 vCPU, 8 GB)
  • Scaling: 2-10 nodes
  • Purpose: General-purpose workloads
  • Taints: None

compute​

  • Instance Type: c6i.xlarge (4 vCPU, 8 GB)
  • Scaling: 0-20 nodes
  • Purpose: CPU-intensive workloads
  • Taints: workload=compute:NoSchedule

memory​

  • Instance Type: r6i.large (2 vCPU, 16 GB)
  • Scaling: 0-5 nodes
  • Purpose: Memory-intensive workloads
  • Taints: workload=memory:NoSchedule

Namespaces​

app​

  • Application workloads (api, worker, cron)
  • Resource quotas and limits enforced
  • Network policies for isolation

platform​

  • Platform services (external-dns, cert-manager, metrics-server)
  • Cluster-wide addons
  • Elevated permissions

EKS Managed Addons​

  • vpc-cni: AWS VPC networking for pods
  • kube-proxy: Network proxy for Services
  • coredns: DNS server for service discovery
  • aws-ebs-csi-driver: EBS volumes for persistent storage
  • aws-efs-csi-driver: EFS for shared storage
  • guardduty-agent: Runtime threat detection

GitOps with ArgoCD​

  • Repository: github.com/acme/k8s-manifests
  • Auto-Sync: Automatically apply changes from Git
  • Self-Heal: Revert manual changes to match Git
  • Pruning: Delete resources removed from Git
  • App of Apps: Manage multiple applications