With Kubernetes taking over the world, most cloud service providers now offer managed Kubernetes services. Even though core Kubernetes functionality usually remains consistent across platforms, the feature sets and manageability of each provider varies wildly. In this webinar, we’ll take a deep dive into the Kubernetes offerings from Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform and see how they measure up to each other, focusing on: operational overhead, supported features, security options.

1. Evaluating theTop 3 Kubernetes Providers
EKS vs GKE vs AKS
Karen Bruner,Tech Evangelist, StackRox
March 24, 2020

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What We’ll Cover
● Supported Kubernetes versions
● Maintenance
● Features
● Networking
● Security
● And more
Karen Bruner
StackRoxTech Evangelist
longtime DevOps engineer

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Google Kubernetes
Engine
Amazon Elastic
Kubernetes Service
Azure Kubernetes
Service
vs vs

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Version EKS AKS GKE Kubernetes
1.18 ✔
1.17 preview preview* ✔
1.16 ✔ beta ✔
1.15 ✔ default ✔
1.14 default ✔ default
1.13 ✔
1.12 deprecated
Version Support Matrix
* GKE preview requires requesting access

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EKS AKS GKE
Control plane
upgrades
User initiates +
must upgrade
add-ons
User initiates Automatic
Node upgrades User initiates;
manual for some
node groups
User initiates Automatic
Node health
monitoring
None None Automatic node
repair
Upgrades and Maintenance

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* Default
^ Preview/Beta
Feature EKS AKS GKE Kubernetes
Node OS ●Amazon Linux*
●Ubuntu
●Custom AMI
●Windows Server
●Ubuntu*
●Windows
Server^
●COS*
●Ubuntu
●Windows
Server^
●Any Compatible
Linux
●Windows
Server^
Container
Runtime
Docker Docker (Moby) ● Docker*
● containerd
● Docker
● CRI
GPU support NVIDIA NVIDIA NVIDIA With device
plugins
Node pool
autoscaling
Yes; user must
install add-on
Yes Yes Supported
Node Features

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Option EKS AKS GKE
Highly Available Yes Not stated
Zonal: no
Regional: yes
Service Level
Agreement
99.9% 99.5%
Zonal: 99.5%
Regional: 99.95%
Financially-backed
SLA
Yes No Starting June 2020
Control Plane Cost US$0.10/hr None
US$0.10/hr Starting
June 2020
Control Plane Options

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* Must be selected at cluster creation time
Version EKS AKS GKE Kubernetes
Network plugin/CNI AWSVPC CNI Option between
kubenet or Azure
CNI
kubenet kubenet (default;
CNIs can added)
Pod network CIDR VPC network Private (kubenet) or
VPC (Azure CNI)
Private (default) or
VPC
Network Policy
Support
User can install
Calico as add-on
Calico or Azure
Policy*
Can be enabled at
any time (Calico)
Available as CNI
Networking

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* Must be enabled at cluster creation time
Option EKS AKS GKE Kubernetes
Kubernetes RBAC Always enabled Optional* Optional Optional
Pod Security
Policies
Always enabled Optional Optional Optional
Private Kubernetes
API Endpoint
Optional Optional* Optional
Public API Endpoint
Whitelist
Yes Yes Yes
Read-only Root
Filesystem (Nodes)
No No Yes for COS Supported
Security Options

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Limit EKS AKS GKE Kubernetes
Max clusters 100/region 100 50/zone & 50
regional clusters
Max nodes per
cluster
Managed node
groups: 1000
100-1000;Varies by
network andVM set
type
●5000
●1000 w/ GKE
ingress controller
5000
Max nodes per
node pool
Managed node
groups: 100
100 1000
Max node pools per
cluster
Managed node
groups: 10
10 Not documented
Max pods per node Varies by instance
type and OS
30-250, depending
on network type
and configuration
110 100 (recommended
value, configurable)
Service Limits

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Takeaways
• Not all managed Kubernetes services are created equally
• Most mature: GKE
• Most unmanaged: EKS
• AKS and EKS require more hands-on or automation work
• Read the blog post at www.stackrox.com!

12. 12
Q&A

13. 13
Let’s chat
Think of a question later?
Karen@stackrox.com
Twitter @fuzzyKB
www.linkedin.com/in/kmbruner/
Want to learn more?
https://www.stackrox.com/
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