Procure and deploy third-party EKS add-ons without leaving the EKS console

We heard from our customers using Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) that they needed to have a simpler way to discover, procure, and install operational tools to optimize their production clusters. Until October 2023, you can discover Amazon EKS add-on from AWS Marketplace and create an active subscription for the product on the AWS Marketplace console by opening it in a new browser tab. In this blog post, we are  happy to share that Amazon EKS users can now easily discover as well as procure third-party add-ons from within the Amazon EKS console, replacing the need to open the product details page in a new tab to create a subscription.

We previously introduced an integrated deployment option for deploying Helm -based third-party products from AWS Marketplace into an existing Amazon EKS cluster as an add-on. Lifecycle management of these add-ons can be done using different methods. It can be managed using UI actions on the Amazon EKS console, AWS CLI commands, Amazon EKS API operations,  Infrastucture as Code tools (AWS CloudFormation, AWS Cloud Development Kit, and third party solutions)

Prerequisites

• Have necessary IAM permissions
  • IAM Permissions to create and manage an EKS Cluster.
  • IAM permissions to create and manage a subscription in AWS Marketplace.
• Make sure you have an active EKS cluster in your AWS account, or create one using the instructions mentioned in the Amazon EKS User Guide.

Solution overview

In this post, we show you how you can discover and create an AWS Marketplace subscription for the third-party Amazon EKS add-on without leaving the Amazon EKS console. What’s more, you’ll learn how to deploy the third-party add-on right within the same browser window. You can find the list of AWS Marketplace add-ons available on any existing EKS cluster in our documentation.

This list grows as we add more software from independent software vendors (ISVs) in AWS Marketplace. For this post, we focus on the service-mesh category and delve into how to install an Istio service mesh using Solo.io Istio distribution.

Solo’s Istio distribution is available in AWS Marketplace as a free product. It provides the basic Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 140-2 compliant Istio setup and deploys the ISTIOD pod, which manages the Istio service mesh along with the necessary custom resource definitions needed for working with the service mesh. It helps implement all zero trust architecture principles with a few steps on your EKS cluster.

The following image shows the reference architecture for the solution. Amazon EKS User will be able to discover Solo’s EKS add-on from the Amazon EKS add-on catalog and subscribe to the same using the new AWS Marketplace procurement widget while staying inside the Amazon EKS console.

Solution walkthrough

To get started, sign in to your AWS account with an IAM role that has permissions to manage an EKS cluster. Use the following instructions to find, subscribe to, and deploy Calyptia from the Amazon EKS add-on catalog.

1. Navigate to the Amazon EKS console, and select an existing cluster from the list. Select the Add-ons On the right side of the Add-ons section, select the Get more add-onsbutton on top-right corner of tab section.

2. Scroll down to AWS Marketplace add-ons, and in the vendor dropdown, select io.

3. In the upper right corner of the Solo.io Istio Distribution box, select the check box. To go to the add-on configuration page, select Next.

Note: You do have the option to open the product details of the Solo.io Istio distribution product in AWS Marketplace and continue the subscription process. We continue without doing this to see how we can procure the core agent product from within the Amazon EKS console.

4. In the Configure selected add-on settings page, there is a Version dropdown with options to select a version of the Solo.ios Istio Distribution add-on. If you have an active subscription for the product, the status shows as Ready to install. To continue, select Next and skip to Step 10. If you do not have an active subscription, proceed to Step 5. To learn more about versions management, check documentation here.

5. If you do not have an active subscription for the product, the status shows as Requires subscription, with a View subscription options banner displayed. To display the inline procurement widget, select the View subscription options

6. On the procurement widget, you will be shown the available offers for the product from AWS Marketplace. You can select the appropriate offer to display the pricing information and end user license agreement (EULA) for that offer. To start the subscription process, confirm the details and select Subscribe.

The subscription process takes a few minutes. Close the widget. If you try to proceed while the subscription is being processed, you will receive an error. When the subscription is successful, you will see a green banner at the top. Then you can click on Next to go the final step.

7. To deploy the add-on into the EKS cluster, review the details of the add-on and select Create.

You can check the status of add-on deployment in the main cluster information page under the Add-ons tab. To display the agreement details of the AWS Marketplace subscription, select the View subscription button.

You can also check the pods running on your EKS cluster under “istio-system” namespace. You can install kubectl utility on AWS CloudShell and follow the commands shown in the following screenshot to check the resources created in “istio-system” namespace by the Solo.io add-on.

Following screenshot shows the update-kubeconfig CLI command to set the context pointing to your EKS cluster and then use kubectl get all CLI command to show all the resources running in istio-system namespace.

You can check next steps from Solo.io on how to fine-tune your service mesh according to your application requirements.

Cleanup

To remove the Solo.ios Istio distribution add-on from the cluster, follow these steps.

1. 1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to Amazon EKS.
   2. Navigate to your EKS cluster and select the Add-ons
   3. Search for the add-on using the keyword “Solo” and select the io Istio Distribution add-on. Then on the top of right corner of the add-ons tab, select Remove.
   4. Follow the onscreen instructions to delete the add-on from the cluster.

To unsubscribe the Solo.io Istio distribution add-on software from AWS Marketplace, follow these steps.

1. 1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to AWS Marketplace.
   2. Search for “Solo” in your AWS Marketplace subscriptions. Select Manage.
   3. On the Solo.io Istio distribution add-on subscription page, from the Actions dropdown, choose Cancel subscription.
   4. Follow the onscreen instructions to delete the AWS Marketplace subscription for the Solo.io Istio distribution.

Conclusion

In this blog post, We showed you how to discover, subscribe to, and deploy a FIPS complaint Solo.io Istio service mesh using Amazon EKS add-on framework into your EKS cluster in less than 5 clicks. You are able to do this without leaving the Amazon EKS console. You can add more operational capabilities to your workload running on EKS clusters.  Discover other add-ons available in the Amazon EKS add-on catalog under add-ons tab to make your cluster production ready.

Next steps

• Explore the third-party add-on softwareavailable on Amazon EKS.
• If you don’t find the software you are looking for, email aws-mp-eks@amazon.com.

About the Authors

Swaminathan Jayaraman is a Solutions Architect with AWS Marketplace. He supports buyers in procuring third-party products in AWS Marketplace and sellers in listing their products successfully in AWS Marketplace. He has over 14 years of industry experience in developing and managing large-scale applications, deploying SaaS solutions, and supporting cloud migrations. He loves problem-solving and always enjoys a good technical conversation.

Wendy Sikirat Jabitta is an ISV Solutions Program Manager with AWS Marketplace. Wendy works with AWS technology partners to build integrated solutions that offer more visibility to their products and enable ease of deployment by customers. In her free time, Wendy enjoys wellness and fitness activities, as well as participating in fitness competitions.