Improved Amazon EKS console for cluster creation and management

We recently announced an updated Amazon EKS console experience to create clusters, management, and supporting documentation. In this blog post, we dive into the updates we have made and how they aim to help our customers and cluster administrators when creating clusters using the Amazon EKS console.

1. Multi-step cluster create flow

EKS now includes a multi-step cluster creation flow on the console to help configure and create the cluster with networking, logging, and additional cluster configurations like tags and secrets encryption. This update introduces a four-step cluster creation process listed below and illustrated in the graphic above:

1. Configure cluster
2. Specify networking
3. Configure logging
4. Review and create

2. Information links and same-view references

To help reference documentation whilst creating the cluster, we have added information links for the input fields. When clicked, the information is displayed in a tab on the same page making it easier to reference for the cluster admins. Below is a list of new information panels you will notice in the cluster create flow:

• General cluster configuration (step 1)
• Kubernetes version (step 1)
• Cluster service role (step 1)
• Secrets encryption (step 1)
• Tags (step 1)
• VPC, subnets, and security groups (step 2)
• Cluster endpoint access (step 2)
• Control plane logging (step 3)

3. Native ‘in console’ refresh for configuration updates

Configuration fields within each step of cluster creation can now be dynamically refreshed without needing to reload the entire page. We also introduced refresh buttons next to the input fields that allow dynamic updates for things you define outside of EKS like VPC, Subnets, Security Groups, Cluster Service Role, and KMS Keys. This dynamic refresh lets you load the latest lists of available resources without needing to refresh the console page.

Other minor updates

1. When a cluster’s configuration is updated after cluster creation, the console now takes you to the updates tab to monitor status of the current and review previous update history.
2. Toggle buttons have been replaced with radio buttons to select endpoint access control and make it clearer which endpoint access option you are selecting for the cluster.
3. The cluster review page in step 4 is re-organized into sections reflecting the multi-step configurations.
4. The cluster creation review page now allows for dynamic edits within each step without losing any configuration information.
5. Subnet/Security group selection has been compacted with a multiselect instead of a large table.

We hope these updates make it easier and faster to create and configure EKS clusters using the AWS Management Console.

Customers using eksctl as their preferred tool for Amazon EKS cluster creation may continue to do so, and it remains the preferred CLI tool for creating and configuring Amazon EKS clusters. Sample cluster configurations to create Amazon EKS clusters can be found here and clusters created through eksctl are visible and editable in the console.

We continue to listen to our customers using the public AWS containers roadmap on GitHub – we look forward to your engagement for future updates and improvements!