Posted On: Jul 2, 2021

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) managed node groups now supports upgrading multiple nodes in parallel.

EKS managed node groups help make it easy to run a highly-available and secure Kubernetes cluster by automating the provisioning and lifecycle management of worker nodes, eliminating the need to select or configure multiple AWS services to add and update nodes in a cluster. During the upgrade process, managed node groups will bring up a new node, and cordon and drain old nodes to minimize disruptions to running applications.

Previously, this upgrade process happened one node at a time, which provided the least possible amount of disruption to applications, but took longer to complete with larger node groups. Now, the amount of nodes that can be upgraded at a time is configurable, and clusters with applications that are more fault tolerant can benefit from reduced time to complete node group upgrades.

EKS managed node groups parallel upgrades can be performed on any existing or newly created managed node group. To get started, visit the Amazon EKS documentation.