When would I use EKS hybrid nodes?

Hi,

EKS Hybrid nodes have just gone GA. See this blog post: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/use-your-on-premises-infrastructure-in-amazon-eks-clusters-with-amazon-eks-hybrid-nodes/

This post summarizes the benefits of hybrid nodes:

With Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes, you can unify Kubernetes management across cloud and 
on-premises environments and take advantage of the scale and availability of Amazon EKS 
in all the places your applications need to run. You can use your existing on-premises hardware,
 while offloading the responsibility for managing Kubernetes control planes to EKS and 
conserving on-premises capacity for your workloads. Using Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes, 
you can adopt consistent operational practices and tooling across your cloud and 
on-premises environments.

Best,

Didier

Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes would be an excellent fit for your situation. You would use EKS hybrid nodes when you want to:

1. Unify Kubernetes management across your on-premises and cloud environments.
2. Leverage your existing on-premises hardware while benefiting from AWS's managed Kubernetes control plane.
3. Meet specific requirements such as low-latency, local data processing, regulatory compliance, or policy requirements that necessitate running applications on-premises or at the edge.
4. Standardize Kubernetes operations and tooling across different environments.
5. Offload the responsibility of managing the Kubernetes control plane to AWS, while conserving your on-premises capacity for workloads.

Since you're already running Kubernetes on-premises and have network connectivity to AWS, EKS Hybrid Nodes could provide several advantages:

1. You can continue using your existing on-premises infrastructure.
2. You can manage your on-premises and cloud Kubernetes workloads using the same EKS clusters, features, and tools.
3. You'll benefit from AWS's expertise in managing the Kubernetes control plane, improving scalability and availability.
4. You can take advantage of various AWS services for centralized monitoring, logging, and identity management.

To get started, you'd need to ensure you meet the prerequisites, such as having the right network connectivity, compatible infrastructure, and a supported operating system. You would then create an EKS cluster, enable hybrid nodes, and connect your on-premises nodes to the cluster.

This approach allows you to modernize your Kubernetes management while still leveraging your existing investments in on-premises hardware.
Sources
Managed Kubernetes – Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Hybrid Nodes - AWS
Use your on-premises infrastructure in Amazon EKS clusters with Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes | AWS News Blog
Announcing Amazon EKS Hybrid Nodes - AWS
Prerequisite setup for hybrid nodes - Amazon EKS