Managed Cloud Providers

Key Takeaways for AI & Readers

Managed Control Plane: Cloud providers (EKS, GKE, AKS) manage the API Server, etcd, Scheduler, and Controller Manager — reducing operational overhead significantly.
Provider Strengths: GKE leads in automation and ease of use (Autopilot mode), EKS in AWS ecosystem integration and configurability, AKS in enterprise/Microsoft ecosystem integration.
Shared Responsibility: Providers ensure the Control Plane is healthy and available; you are responsible for worker nodes (unless using a managed node service), application security, RBAC, networking configuration, and workload management.
Cost Structure: All three charge for the Control Plane (~$70-75/month for EKS/AKS, free for GKE Standard) plus compute costs for worker nodes.

While Kind, Minikube, and K3d are excellent for learning, production workloads run on Managed Kubernetes services from cloud providers. These services handle the hardest operational challenges — maintaining the Control Plane, etcd reliability, API Server availability, and Kubernetes version upgrades — so your team can focus on deploying and running applications.

Comparing the Big Three

Google GKE

The most advanced. Autopilot mode and best-in-class UI.

$ gcloud container clusters get-credentials

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

EKS is the most widely adopted managed Kubernetes service, largely because AWS has the largest cloud market share. It provides a managed Control Plane with deep integration into the AWS ecosystem.

Key Features

Managed Control Plane: AWS runs the API Server and etcd across multiple Availability Zones
Compute Options: EC2 instances, Fargate (serverless pods), and EKS Anywhere (on-premises)
EKS Managed Node Groups: AWS handles node provisioning, AMI updates, and draining during upgrades
IAM Integration: AWS IAM roles mapped to Kubernetes RBAC via IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts)
Networking: VPC-native networking via the AWS VPC CNI plugin (each Pod gets a real VPC IP)
Add-ons: Managed versions of CoreDNS, kube-proxy, VPC CNI, and EBS CSI driver

Strengths

Deepest integration with AWS services (ALB Ingress Controller, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, ECR)
Largest ecosystem of third-party integrations
EKS Anywhere for hybrid on-premises clusters
Karpenter (AWS-native node autoscaler) is best-in-class for rapid scaling

Considerations

Pricing: $0.10/hour per cluster (~$73/month) for the Control Plane, plus EC2/Fargate compute
Complexity: EKS has the steepest learning curve due to IAM, VPC networking, and Security Groups
Upgrade model: You must manually initiate control plane and node group upgrades

# Create an EKS cluster using eksctl
eksctl create cluster \
  --name production \
  --region us-west-2 \
  --nodegroup-name workers \
  --node-type m5.large \
  --nodes 3 \
  --managed

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Kubernetes was born at Google, and GKE is often considered the most polished and advanced managed service. It offers the smoothest operational experience and the most automation.

Key Features

Autopilot Mode: Google manages everything — nodes, scaling, security baseline, and resource optimization. You only define Pods.
Standard Mode: You manage the node pools; Google manages the Control Plane
Release Channels: Rapid, Regular, and Stable channels for automatic version management
GKE Dataplane V2: Powered by Cilium/eBPF for high-performance networking and built-in network policy enforcement
Multi-cluster: GKE Enterprise offers multi-cluster management, Anthos Service Mesh, and fleet-wide policies

Strengths

Most automated upgrade and patching experience
Autopilot eliminates node management entirely
Best built-in security features (Workload Identity, Binary Authorization, Security Posture)
Free tier for the Standard mode Control Plane (one zonal cluster per account)
Fastest to get started — gcloud CLI creates a cluster in one command

Considerations

Pricing: Standard mode Control Plane is free (zonal) or $0.10/hour (regional). Autopilot charges per Pod resource request
Regional lock-in: While Kubernetes is portable, GKE-specific features (Autopilot, Config Connector) create soft lock-in
Less flexibility: Autopilot restricts privileged containers and host-path mounts by default

# Create a GKE Autopilot cluster
gcloud container clusters create-auto production \
  --region us-central1 \
  --project my-project

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

AKS is the natural choice for organizations already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. It offers strong integration with Azure Active Directory, Azure DevOps, and the wider Azure platform.

Key Features

Free Control Plane: AKS does not charge for the Kubernetes control plane (unique among the big three)
Azure AD Integration: Native Azure Active Directory authentication for cluster access
Virtual Nodes: Serverless pods via Azure Container Instances (ACI) for burst workloads
Windows Node Pools: First-class support for running Windows containers alongside Linux
Azure Policy: Kubernetes governance integrated with Azure's policy engine (based on OPA/Gatekeeper)

Strengths

Free Control Plane significantly reduces base cost
Best Windows container support in any managed Kubernetes service
Deep integration with Azure Monitor, Azure Key Vault, and Azure DevOps
Azure Arc extends AKS management to on-premises and multi-cloud clusters
Automatic node image upgrades

Considerations

Pricing: Control plane is free; you pay for VM compute, networking, and storage
Maturity: Some features lag behind GKE and EKS in release timing
Networking complexity: Azure networking (VNet, NSGs, UDRs) adds configuration overhead

# Create an AKS cluster
az aks create \
  --resource-group my-rg \
  --name production \
  --node-count 3 \
  --node-vm-size Standard_D4s_v3 \
  --enable-managed-identity \
  --generate-ssh-keys

Feature Comparison Matrix

Feature	EKS	GKE	AKS
Control Plane cost	$73/month	Free (zonal Standard) / $73 (regional)	Free
Serverless pods	Fargate	Autopilot	Virtual Nodes (ACI)
Node autoscaling	Karpenter / Cluster Autoscaler	Node Auto-provisioning / Cluster Autoscaler	Cluster Autoscaler / KEDA
Networking	AWS VPC CNI	GKE Dataplane V2 (Cilium)	Azure CNI / Kubenet
Identity	IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts)	Workload Identity	Azure AD + Workload Identity
Windows containers	Supported	Supported	Best-in-class
Multi-cluster	EKS Anywhere	GKE Enterprise / Anthos	Azure Arc
Upgrade automation	Manual trigger	Release channels (auto)	Auto-upgrade option
GPU support	P4/V100/A100	T4/V100/A100/TPU	N-series/A100
Default CNI	AWS VPC CNI	Cilium (Dataplane V2)	Azure CNI
Market share	Largest	Second	Third

The Shared Responsibility Model

Understanding what the provider manages and what you manage is critical:

Provider Manages

Control Plane availability (API Server, etcd, Scheduler, Controller Manager)
Control Plane scaling and patching
etcd backups and disaster recovery
Kubernetes version support and security patches
Cross-AZ Control Plane redundancy

You Manage

Worker Nodes: OS updates, security patches (unless using managed node groups or Autopilot)
Application Security: Container images, vulnerability scanning, runtime security
RBAC: Defining who can do what in the cluster
Network Policies: Controlling traffic between Pods
Secrets Management: Encrypting and rotating sensitive data
Monitoring and Alerting: Setting up Prometheus, Grafana, or provider-native tools
Backup: Application data, persistent volumes, Kubernetes manifests (GitOps)
Cost Management: Right-sizing nodes, cleaning up unused resources

Choosing a Provider

Choose EKS if:

Your organization is all-in on AWS
You need maximum configurability and control
You're running workloads with deep AWS service dependencies (S3, SQS, DynamoDB)
You need on-premises Kubernetes (EKS Anywhere)

Choose GKE if:

You want the smoothest operational experience
You prefer automation over manual control
You're building AI/ML workloads (GKE has TPU support)
You want Autopilot to eliminate node management entirely

Choose AKS if:

Your organization uses Azure AD and the Microsoft ecosystem
You need first-class Windows container support
Free Control Plane pricing is a significant factor
You need Azure Arc for multi-cloud management

Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Strategies

Some organizations run Kubernetes across multiple providers for resilience or compliance. Tools that help:

Cluster API (CAPI): Declarative cluster lifecycle management across providers
Crossplane: Manage cloud resources from within Kubernetes
ArgoCD / Flux: GitOps-based deployment to multiple clusters
Istio / Cilium Mesh: Multi-cluster service mesh for cross-cluster communication

See Cluster API and Crossplane for details.

What's Next?

With an understanding of managed services, proceed to:

Your First Deployment — Deploy an application on your cluster
Pods — Learn the fundamental unit of computation
Services — Understand how networking works in Kubernetes

Comparing the Big Three​

Google GKE

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)​

Key Features​

Strengths​

Considerations​

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)​

Key Features​

Strengths​

Considerations​

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)​

Key Features​

Strengths​

Considerations​

Feature Comparison Matrix​

The Shared Responsibility Model​

Provider Manages​

You Manage​

Choosing a Provider​

Choose EKS if:​

Choose GKE if:​

Choose AKS if:​

Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Strategies​

What's Next?​

Comparing the Big Three

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

Key Features

Strengths

Considerations

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)

Key Features

Strengths

Considerations

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Key Features

Strengths

Considerations

Feature Comparison Matrix

The Shared Responsibility Model

Provider Manages

You Manage

Choosing a Provider

Choose EKS if:

Choose GKE if:

Choose AKS if:

Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Strategies

What's Next?