Benefits
EKS Auto Mode is a new operating model for Amazon EKS. In addition to the reduced operational responsibility, there are several technical changes to further improve the security posture of Auto Mode nodes.
EC2 managed instances: EKS Auto Mode uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) managed instances to provide the compute that backs an Auto Mode node. This allows Auto Mode to provide the full breadth of Amazon EC2 capabilities while delegating operational control to Amazon EKS.
Minimal container optimized OS: The operating system used on Auto Mode nodes is a variant of Bottlerocket
, which is optimized solely for running containers. Minimal permissions on the node role: Auto Mode has been designed to require fewer permissions on the node's AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
role. Amazon EKS managed compute, networking, and storage capabilities: Auto Mode provides managed capabilities for these functions, which shifts the responsibility for health and patching of the components that normally provide them to AWS.
Frequent patching: AWS is responsible for patching the components hosted on AWS infrastructure and the components in the Auto Mode node Amazon Machine Image (AMI).
Limited node lifetime: It's a best practice to treat Kubernetes nodes as ephemeral compute providers. Auto Mode builds upon that by stopping nodes from living longer than 21 days.
