Amazon SageMaker HyperPod now supports custom Kubernetes labels and taints
Amazon SageMaker HyperPod now supports custom Kubernetes labels and taints, enabling customers to control pod scheduling and integrate seamlessly with existing Kubernetes infrastructure. Customers deploying AI workloads on HyperPod clusters orcehstrated with EKS need precise control over workload placement to prevent expensive GPU resources from being consumed by system pods and non-AI workloads, while ensuring compatibility with custom device plugins such as EFA and NVIDIA GPU operators. Previously, customers had to manually apply labels and taints using kubectl and reapply them after every node replacement, scaling, or patching operation, creating significant operational overhead.
This capability allows you to configure labels and taints at the instance group level through the CreateCluster and UpdateCluster APIs, providing a managed approach to defining and maintaining scheduling policies across the entire node lifecycle. Using the new KubernetesConfig parameter, you can specify up to 50 labels and 50 taints per instance group. Labels enable resource organization and pod targeting through node selectors, while taints repel pods without matching tolerations to protect specialized nodes. For example, you can apply NoSchedule taints to GPU instance groups to ensure only AI training jobs with explicit tolerations consume high-cost compute resources, or add custom labels that enable device plugin pods to schedule correctly. HyperPod automatically applies these configurations during node creation and maintains them across replacement, scaling, and patching operations, eliminating manual intervention and reducing operational overhead.
This feature is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon SageMaker HyperPod is available. To learn more about custom labels and taints, see the user guide.