eks-compute-autoscaling

Repo for Cluster Autoscaler vs Karpenter Blog at Kapstan

Install awscli

brew install awscli

Configure aws cli

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/configure/index.html

Install Terraform

brew install terraform

Install Kubectl

brew install kubernetes-cli

Install EKS Node Viewer

brew tap aws/tap
brew install eks-node-viewer

Setup Infrastructure

The following commands assume you are in eks-compute-autoscaling directory

• Add the access_key and secret_key to infrastructure/terraform.auto.tfvars

access_key = "Your AWS account Access Key"
secret_key = "You AWS account Secret Key"

• Create the infrastructure

cd infrastructure
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

Add Karpenter to the EKS cluster

• Get the output from infrastructure

cd infrastructure
terraform output -json

• Add the required output vaules in karpenter/terraform.auto.tfvars

cluster_name                       = "autoscaler-demo"
region                             = "us-west-2"
cluster_certificate_authority_data = ""
cluster_endpoint                   = ""
karpenter_instance_profile_name    = ""
karpenter_irsa_arn                 = ""
karpenter_role_arn                 = ""
eks_managed_node_group_id          = ""

• Add Karpenter to the cluster

cd karpenter
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

• View the provisioned nodes by default

eks-node-viewer --resources cpu,memory 

Nginx Pods to test Autoscaling

• Add the required vaules in karpenter/terraform.auto.tfvars

cluster_name                       = "autoscaler-demo"
cluster_certificate_authority_data = ""
cluster_endpoint                   = ""

• Deploy nginx pods to scale up the nodes

cd nginx
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

• View Nodes

eks-node-viewer --resources cpu,memory

• Output (Might change based on what node Karpenter chooses to provision)

• Remove nginx pods to scale down the nodes

terraform destroy

Remove Karpenter

cd karpenter
terraform destroy

Adding Cluster AuotScaler

• Please make sure to remove Karpenter before adding Cluster Autoscaler in order to view the differnce between the autoscaling capabilities of both.

Add Cluster Autoscaler to the EKS cluster

• Get the output from infrastructure

cd infrastructure
terraform output -json

• Add the required vaules in cluster-autoscaler/terraform.auto.tfvars

cluster_autoscaler_irsa_arn = ""
cluster_autoscaler_irsa_name = "cluster-autoscaler"
cluster_certificate_authority_data = ""
cluster_endpoint = ""
cluster_name = "autoscaler-demo"
region = "us-west-2"

• Deploy Cluster Autoscaler to the cluster

cd cluster-autoscaler
terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

• Add Nginx Deployment to test autoscaling

• View Nodes

eks-node-viewer --resources cpu,memory

• Output

Destroy the Infrastructure

cd infrastructure
terraform destroy --auto-approve

Configure Karpenter and Cluster Autoscaler According to Best Practices

• https://aws.github.io/aws-eks-best-practices/cluster-autoscaling/
• https://aws.github.io/aws-eks-best-practices/karpenter/