EKS Microservices Infrastructure

A production-ready Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) infrastructure deployed using AWS CloudFormation, featuring automated deployment of a scalable microservices architecture with MongoDB persistence, load balancing, and high availability.

🏗️ Architecture Overview

This project implements a complete cloud-native infrastructure on AWS with the following components:

Infrastructure Components

VPC: Custom Virtual Private Cloud with 6 subnets across 3 availability zones
- 3 Public subnets for load balancers and NAT gateways
- 3 Private subnets for application workloads
- Internet Gateway for public connectivity
- 3 NAT Gateways for high availability
EKS Cluster: Managed Kubernetes cluster (v1.28+)
Node Group: Auto-scaling group of EC2 instances (t3.medium)
- Min: 2 nodes
- Desired: 3 nodes
- Max: 6 nodes
EBS CSI Driver: For persistent volume support
Application Load Balancer: Internet-facing load balancer for external traffic

Application Components

MongoDB: StatefulSet with 10GB persistent storage
Backend Service: 3 replicas with ClusterIP service
Frontend Service: 3 replicas with LoadBalancer service
Ingress: Traffic routing for microservices

📋 Prerequisites

AWS CLI configured with appropriate credentials
kubectl installed
Docker Desktop (optional, for custom images)
AWS Account with permissions for:
- EKS
- EC2
- VPC
- CloudFormation
- IAM
- EBS

🚀 Quick Start

1. Deploy Infrastructure (CloudFormation)

Upload the CloudFormation templates in this order:

Step 1: VPC Stack

Stack Name: eks-vpc-stack
Template: 1-vpc-stack.yaml
Parameters: Use defaults (all CIDR ranges pre-configured)

Step 2: EKS Cluster Stack

Stack Name: eks-cluster-stack
Template: 2-eks-cluster-stack.yaml
Parameters: 
  - EnvironmentName: eks-prod
  - KubernetesVersion: 1.28
Capabilities: Check "I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources"
Wait Time: ~15 minutes

Step 3: Node Group Stack

Stack Name: eks-nodegroup-stack
Template: 3-eks-nodegroup-stack.yaml
Parameters:
  - NodeInstanceType: t3.medium
  - NodeAutoScalingGroupMinSize: 2
  - NodeAutoScalingGroupDesiredCapacity: 3
  - NodeAutoScalingGroupMaxSize: 6
Wait Time: ~5 minutes

2. Configure kubectl Access

# Update kubeconfig
aws eks update-kubeconfig --region us-east-1 --name eks-prod --profile default

# Verify connection
kubectl get nodes

3. Grant IAM User Access

# Create access entry for your IAM user
aws eks create-access-entry \
  --cluster-name eks-prod \
  --principal-arn arn:aws:iam::YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:user/YOUR_USERNAME \
  --region us-east-1

# Associate admin policy
aws eks associate-access-policy \
  --cluster-name eks-prod \
  --principal-arn arn:aws:iam::YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID:user/YOUR_USERNAME \
  --access-scope type=cluster \
  --policy-arn arn:aws:eks::aws:cluster-access-policy/AmazonEKSClusterAdminPolicy \
  --region us-east-1

4. Install EBS CSI Driver

aws eks create-addon \
  --cluster-name eks-prod \
  --addon-name aws-ebs-csi-driver \
  --region us-east-1

5. Tag Public Subnets for LoadBalancer

# Get subnet IDs
aws ec2 describe-subnets --region us-east-1 \
  --filters "Name=tag:Name,Values=eks-prod-public-subnet-*" \
  --query "Subnets[].SubnetId" --output table

# Tag subnets (replace with your actual subnet IDs)
aws ec2 create-tags \
  --resources subnet-XXXXX subnet-YYYYY subnet-ZZZZZ \
  --tags Key=kubernetes.io/role/elb,Value=1 \
  --region us-east-1

aws ec2 create-tags \
  --resources subnet-XXXXX subnet-YYYYY subnet-ZZZZZ \
  --tags Key=kubernetes.io/cluster/eks-prod,Value=shared \
  --region us-east-1

6. Deploy Kubernetes Applications

# Deploy all components
kubectl apply -f namespace.yaml
kubectl apply -f mongodb-statefulset.yaml
kubectl apply -f backend-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f frontend-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f ingress.yaml

# Verify deployments
kubectl get pods -n microservices
kubectl get svc -n microservices

7. Access Your Application

# Get LoadBalancer URL
kubectl get svc frontend -n microservices

# Access the application
# http://<EXTERNAL-IP>

📁 Project Structure

eks-cft-project/
├── cloudformation/
│   ├── 1-vpc-stack.yaml              # VPC and networking
│   ├── 2-eks-cluster-stack.yaml      # EKS cluster and IAM roles
│   ├── 3-eks-nodegroup-stack.yaml    # Worker nodes
│   ├── namespace.yaml                 # Kubernetes namespace
│   ├── mongodb-statefulset.yaml       # MongoDB database
│   ├── backend-deployment.yaml        # Backend service
│   ├── frontend-deployment.yaml       # Frontend service
│   └── ingress.yaml                   # Ingress routing
├── config.env                         # Environment configuration
├── README.md                          # This file
└── QUICKSTART.md                      # Quick reference guide

🔧 Configuration

Network Configuration (VPC)

VPC CIDR: 10.0.0.0/16
Public Subnets: 10.0.1.0/24, 10.0.2.0/24, 10.0.3.0/24
Private Subnets: 10.0.11.0/24, 10.0.12.0/24, 10.0.13.0/24
Availability Zones: 3 (us-east-1a, us-east-1b, us-east-1c)

EKS Cluster

Name: eks-prod
Kubernetes Version: 1.28+
Endpoint Access: Public and Private
Logging: Enabled (API, Audit, Authenticator, Controller Manager, Scheduler)

Node Group

Instance Type: t3.medium
Min Nodes: 2
Desired Nodes: 3
Max Nodes: 6
Volume Size: 50GB (gp3, encrypted)
AMI: Amazon Linux 2 (EKS optimized)

Application Resources

MongoDB: 1 replica, 10GB persistent volume
Backend: 3 replicas, 256Mi-512Mi memory
Frontend: 3 replicas, 128Mi-256Mi memory

📊 Monitoring & Management

View Cluster Resources

# All resources
kubectl get all -n microservices

# Pods
kubectl get pods -n microservices

# Services
kubectl get svc -n microservices

# Persistent Volumes
kubectl get pvc -n microservices

View Logs

# Backend logs
kubectl logs -f deployment/backend -n microservices

# Frontend logs
kubectl logs -f deployment/frontend -n microservices

# MongoDB logs
kubectl logs mongodb-0 -n microservices

Scale Applications

# Scale backend
kubectl scale deployment backend --replicas=5 -n microservices

# Scale frontend
kubectl scale deployment frontend --replicas=5 -n microservices

Update Application Images

# Update backend image
kubectl set image deployment/backend backend=YOUR_REGISTRY/backend:v2 -n microservices

# Update frontend image
kubectl set image deployment/frontend frontend=YOUR_REGISTRY/frontend:v2 -n microservices

🔒 Security Features

IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA): OIDC provider configured
Network Segmentation: Private subnets for workloads, public for LBs
Encrypted EBS Volumes: All persistent data encrypted at rest
Security Groups: Cluster control plane security group
Private API Endpoint: Available for enhanced security
IMDSv2: Required on all EC2 instances

💰 Cost Optimization

Estimated monthly costs (us-east-1):

EKS Cluster: ~$73/month
3x t3.medium nodes: ~$100/month
3x NAT Gateways: ~$100/month
EBS Volumes: ~$5/month
Load Balancer: ~$20/month
Data Transfer: Variable

Total: ~$300-350/month

Cost Saving Tips

Use Spot instances for non-critical workloads
Reduce NAT gateways to 1 for dev/test
Use smaller instance types for testing
Enable cluster autoscaler for dynamic scaling
Delete resources when not in use

🧹 Cleanup

To delete all resources and avoid charges:

# Delete Kubernetes resources
kubectl delete namespace microservices

# Delete CloudFormation stacks (in reverse order)
aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name eks-nodegroup-stack --region us-east-1
# Wait for completion (~5 minutes)

aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name eks-cluster-stack --region us-east-1
# Wait for completion (~10 minutes)

aws cloudformation delete-stack --stack-name eks-vpc-stack --region us-east-1
# Wait for completion (~5 minutes)

# Verify all resources deleted
aws cloudformation list-stacks --region us-east-1 \
  --stack-status-filter DELETE_COMPLETE

🐛 Troubleshooting

Pods Not Starting

# Describe pod
kubectl describe pod POD_NAME -n microservices

# Check events
kubectl get events -n microservices --sort-by='.lastTimestamp'

LoadBalancer Pending

# Verify subnet tags
aws ec2 describe-subnets --subnet-ids SUBNET_ID

# Required tags:
# - kubernetes.io/role/elb = 1
# - kubernetes.io/cluster/eks-prod = shared

Cannot Access Cluster

# Update kubeconfig
aws eks update-kubeconfig --region us-east-1 --name eks-prod

# Verify IAM permissions
aws sts get-caller-identity

# Check access entry
aws eks list-access-entries --cluster-name eks-prod --region us-east-1

MongoDB Storage Issues

# Verify EBS CSI driver
kubectl get pods -n kube-system | grep ebs-csi

# Check PVC status
kubectl get pvc -n microservices

📚 Additional Resources

🤝 Contributing

This is a learning/demonstration project. Feel free to:

Fork and customize for your needs
Report issues or suggest improvements
Share your deployment experiences

📝 License

This project is provided as-is for educational and demonstration purposes.

👨‍💻 Author

Created as a demonstration of enterprise-grade AWS EKS infrastructure deployment using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.

🎯 Key Achievements

✅ Automated infrastructure deployment with CloudFormation ✅ High availability across 3 availability zones ✅ Auto-scaling node groups (2-6 nodes) ✅ Persistent storage with EBS CSI driver ✅ Production-ready networking with NAT gateways ✅ Secure IAM roles and OIDC integration ✅ Load-balanced, publicly accessible application ✅ Comprehensive monitoring and logging enabled

Status: ✅ Deployed and Operational

Last Updated: February 2026

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
cloudformation		cloudformation
QUICKSTART.md		QUICKSTART.md
README.md		README.md
cleanup.sh		cleanup.sh
config.env		config.env
deploy-infrastructure.sh		deploy-infrastructure.sh
deploy-kubernetes.sh		deploy-kubernetes.sh
install-alb-controller.sh		install-alb-controller.sh
services.yaml		services.yaml

Latest commit

History

Folders and files

Repository files navigation