AWS EKS Advanced Operations Training

Master production EKS operations in this 3-day advanced course. Learn cluster scaling, security hardening, cost optimization, upgrade strategies, and multi-cluster patterns for enterprise Kubernetes on AWS.

Training Details

Duration	3 days (24 hours)
Level	Advanced
Delivery	In-person, Live online, Hybrid
Certification	N/A

Who Is This For?

• Platform engineers running EKS in production
• SRE teams responsible for EKS reliability and performance
• Security engineers hardening EKS environments
• Teams optimizing EKS costs at scale

Learning Outcomes

After completing this training, participants will be able to:

• Implement Cluster Autoscaler and Karpenter for efficient scaling
• Harden EKS clusters with network policies, Pod Security Standards, and GuardDuty
• Optimize costs with Spot instances, Fargate, and right-sizing
• Execute zero-downtime cluster upgrades
• Implement GitOps with Flux or ArgoCD on EKS
• Design multi-cluster and multi-region EKS architectures

Detailed Agenda

Day 1: Scaling and Performance

Module 1: Node Scaling with Karpenter

• Karpenter architecture and provisioners
• NodePool and EC2NodeClass configuration
• Instance type selection and consolidation
• Karpenter vs Cluster Autoscaler — when to use each
• Hands-on: Deploy Karpenter and configure auto-scaling

Module 2: Application Scaling and Performance

• Horizontal Pod Autoscaler with custom metrics
• Vertical Pod Autoscaler
• KEDA for event-driven scaling
• Resource right-sizing strategies
• Hands-on: Implement HPA with custom CloudWatch metrics

Day 2: Security and Compliance

Module 3: Network Security

• Calico and VPC CNI network policies
• Security groups for Pods
• AWS PrivateLink for private API access
• Egress control with NAT Gateway and proxy
• Hands-on: Implement zero-trust networking with network policies

Module 4: Runtime Security and Compliance

• Amazon GuardDuty for EKS Runtime Monitoring
• Pod Security Standards and admission controllers
• OPA Gatekeeper for policy enforcement
• Image scanning with Amazon Inspector
• Secrets management with AWS Secrets Manager CSI driver
• Hands-on: Deploy GuardDuty, Gatekeeper policies, and Secrets Manager

Day 3: Operations and Multi-Cluster

Module 5: Cluster Upgrades and Maintenance

• EKS upgrade lifecycle and support windows
• Control plane and node group upgrade strategies
• Add-on compatibility and upgrade order
• Blue-green cluster upgrades with DNS switching
• Hands-on: Perform a rolling cluster upgrade

Module 6: Cost Optimization

• Spot instances with Karpenter
• Fargate for burst workloads
• Kubecost for cost visibility
• Savings Plans and Reserved Instances for EKS
• Hands-on: Implement cost-optimized node pools with Spot and on-demand mix

Module 7: Multi-Cluster Architectures

• Multi-cluster patterns (federation, mesh, GitOps)
• Cross-cluster service discovery
• Multi-region failover with Route 53
• GitOps with Flux for multi-cluster management
• Hands-on: Deploy applications across multiple EKS clusters with Flux

Prerequisites

• EKS Fundamentals training or equivalent hands-on EKS experience
• AWS networking (VPC, subnets, security groups) and IAM experience
• Kubernetes administration skills (kubectl, Helm, resource management)

Delivery Formats

Format	Description
In-Person	On-site at your company's location, hands-on with direct interaction
Live Online	Interactive virtual sessions with screen sharing and real-time labs
Hybrid	Combination of on-site and remote sessions, flexible scheduling

All formats include hands-on labs, course materials, and post-training support.