What are the differences between running Kubernetes on GCP GKE vs. AWS EKS?

Question

What are the differences between running Kubernetes on GCP GKE vs. AWS EKS?

Answer 1

The difference is as follows, EKS is not really fully integrated or managed like the others, and so far is still basically in beta status. Initially, AWS did not have a managed version so there was an involved process to get it’s set up yourself but that time has gone. The advantage of Kubernetes is that it itself is designed to abstract hardware into the same interface regardless of where it is running, so if you are just writing standard deployments of stateless container apps, it will be all very similar.

Both EKS and Kubernetes have a solid integration with the rest of their platforms, by using normal VMs to run the Kubernetes workers. Both are integrated into your normal VPC networking and have access to load balancers and other private network links. Both integrate with IAM permissions across the Kubernetes cluster and the entire cloud account.

Let’s have a look at AWS EKS:-

EKS is more about AWS piecing together several parts to create a sort of automation layer to run your cluster automatically, rather than fully built offering. EKS does not manage worker nodes for you, instead, you have to use a prepared cloud formation template to actually bring up nodes to join your cluster. What it does is it reduces the complexity of setting it up yourself but it is still much more work then the few clicks it takes with GKE.

Now let’s have a look at GCP GKE:- 

You will find that GKE has much faster cluster creation time and easier operation because they take care of both master and worker nodes for you. You specify the worker node setup just like starting any other GCE VMs and they are managed as an instance group for your workers, and you can run multiple worker “pools” for each cluster if you want to split up your workload. If you want to learn all about these two technologies then you can have a look at the following DevOps Tutorial which covers all the concepts regarding these two.

Let’s compare both of them:-

Talking about Kubernetes, it is a great abstraction but not easy to get up and running, so having that taken care of for you is often worth it. On the other hand, GKE has much smoother operations and integrations and EKS is behind in almost everything but the master nodes running the cluster services and integration with the wider range of AWS services like certificate management, but GKE is accelerating fast with that and EKS still needs to fix the basics of cluster management.

Once you get a cluster up and running though, the biggest difference is really about what environment you like better and where the rest of your app is already deployed.

You must have a look at the following DevOps Training Course if you want to have a certification in these technologies. Here is the link of the video by which I came to know about all these things, you must watch it if you want to become comfortable in these topics.  

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