Amazon EKS — Networking
EKS networking is one of the most important and complex topics. Understanding VPC design, the VPC CNI plugin, and private cluster access patterns is essential for production clusters.
Topics Covered
| # | Topic | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | VPC Design for EKS | Subnet architecture, tagging, and NAT Gateway patterns |
| 2 | Amazon VPC CNI | How pods get real VPC IP addresses |
| 3 | Custom Networking & Prefix Delegation | Solving IP exhaustion and increasing pod density |
| 4 | Security Groups for Pods | Pod-level VPC security group isolation |
| 5 | Private Cluster Access | Securing API server access with private endpoints |
| 6 | Hands-On Lab | Build an EKS-ready VPC and test pod networking |
| 7 | Practice Questions | Test your EKS networking knowledge |
Why Networking Matters in EKS
EKS networking differs from vanilla Kubernetes because:
- Pods get real VPC IP addresses (not overlay IPs) via the VPC CNI plugin
- Pod-to-pod communication uses native VPC routing (no encapsulation overhead)
- Pods can communicate directly with AWS services using VPC IPs
- Security groups can be applied at the pod level (not just the node level)
- IP address management becomes critical — you can run out of IPs if not planned
