EKS Upgrade Journey

Overview

This section documents real-world EKS cluster upgrade experiences from the community.

Blog Series: Marcincuber’s EKS Upgrade Journey

1.23 to 1.24

Key learnings from upgrading between Kubernetes 1.23 and 1.24.

1.25 to 1.26

Key learnings from upgrading between Kubernetes 1.25 and 1.26.

1.26 to 1.27

Key learnings from upgrading between Kubernetes 1.26 and 1.27.

1.27 to 1.28

Key learnings from upgrading between Kubernetes 1.27 and 1.28.

1.28 to 1.29

Key learnings from upgrading between Kubernetes 1.28 and 1.29.

1.29 to 1.30

Key learnings from upgrading between Kubernetes 1.29 and 1.30.

Common Upgrade Patterns

1. Update addons before cluster - Always update VPC CNI, CoreDNS, kube-proxy first
2. Node group drain - Use nodegroup update with proper draining strategy
3. Test in non-prod - Validate applications on target version first
4. Backup before upgrade - Screenshot important configurations

Common Issues

Issue	Solution
Pod disruption	Use PodDisruptionBudgets
Image pull errors	Update image references
API deprecation	Update manifests before upgrade
Addon failures	Delete and recreate addon

Workshop

Practice upgrades in a safe environment: AWS EKS Upgrade Workshop