Understanding AWS End of Service Life Is a Key FinOps Responsibility

It’s been a while since Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced extended support prices for Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), and by now, most of us have felt its impact on our cloud bills. While we’ve lived with this policy for some time, it’s a reality that bears repeating: EKS extended support costs six times more than standard support. It’s a steep premium that continues to influence how we prioritize version upgrades.

When a Kubernetes minor version reaches its end‑of‑standard‑support date, it moves into extended support, and delayed upgrades can quickly incur these higher fees on older clusters. For some organizations, these could result in a significant increase in cloud costs. These cost increases impact budgeting but also bring greater attention to version control as a critical responsibility for FinOps teams.

The current Amazon EKS support timeline for recent Kubernetes versions looks like this:

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EKS Support Lifecycle at a Glance

Amazon EKS provides a lifecycle for each Kubernetes minor version, with a standard support phase followed by an extended support phase, for a total of up to 26 months per version. During extended support, you pay a higher per‑cluster control plane rate to stay on that version. If you disable extended support for a cluster, AWS will automatically upgrade it to the next Kubernetes version when standard support ends. If you enable extended support, the cluster can remain on its current version for a limited period of time at this higher cost. You control this behavior by configuring the cluster’s upgrade policy. See the Amazon EKS documentation for the latest lifecycle details and timelines.

Understanding AWS Extended Support Price Increases

Changes to the AWS pricing model for extended support services created new cost dynamics for businesses that rely on EKS. The control plane, critical to Kubernetes clusters, is priced at $0.60 per hour per cluster in extended support, compared to $0.10 in standard support. Kubernetes and EKS release three to four versions per year, and the service typically offers 14 months of standard support after the release date. That means you need to have a continuous process in place for updating your clusters to keep those clusters on supported EKS versions.

EKS extended support gives you up to an extra year to catch up if you fall behind, but it’s not a comfortable spot to be in because of the additional costs. You will still need to upgrade eventually. Amazon EKS does send a notice through the AWS Health Dashboard about 12 months after the Kubernetes version was released on Amazon EKS, which includes the end of support date (about 60 days from the date of notice). In practice, this means extended support should be treated as a short-term safety net, with upgrade plans centered on the standard support window whenever possible.

For many teams, that extended support premium can add up to thousands of dollars per cluster per year and to six‑figure totals across large fleets, making extended support a visible line item FinOps can track in reports and actively target for elimination through timely upgrades.

FinOps, Version Control, and Cost Management

Based on these extended support fees, version control becomes an important aspect of financial operations in technology-driven companies. FinOps teams must now navigate these price increases, working to ensure that EKS is in standard support to avoid sudden increases in control plane costs. This change underscores the importance of considering AWS end of service life management as an aspect of financial planning, and adds yet another reason to embrace FinOps for cloud infrastructure cost management. As the EKS lifecycle model and upgrade policy controls mature, FinOps and platform teams must collaborate closely to keep clusters within standard support whenever possible.

Build a Business Case for Upgrades

While the hit of extended support costs presents a challenge, it’s also an opportunity for organizations to reevaluate their cloud infrastructure and upgrade processes. By identifying the need for an upgrade as an investment rather than a basic cost, FinOps teams can create a compelling business case for keeping their technology stack up to date with newer versions. This perspective will help organizations avoid extended support fees and ensure use of the latest features and improvements in Kubernetes.

The Cost of Inaction

There are tangible costs associated with remaining on outdated versions after standard support expires. Platform engineering teams can leverage extended support fees as a clear metric that demonstrates the financial impact of inaction, showing a quantifiable incentive for pursuing timely upgrades, whether that is completed in-house or through a service provider.

Operational Efficiency, Compatibility, and Performance

Beyond cost avoidance, upgrading to an EKS version in standard support offers significant benefits in terms of operational efficiency, compatibility with newer software in the cloud native ecosystem, and performance. Outdated versions may have performance limitations that cause increased latency and reduced throughput. Plus, running unsupported versions makes it harder to get help from a community that’s currently focused on the latest version of Kubernetes. And using the latest supported version enhances security because it includes the newest security patches to protect your infrastructure against recently disclosed vulnerabilities and evolving threats.

Simplify Upgrades and Operations

For businesses strained by the constant cycle of Kubernetes upgrades and related operational tasks, managed services offer a compelling alternative. Outsourcing the management of Amazon EKS services to a dedicated team of Kubernetes experts can alleviate the stresses of version control, allowing businesses to focus on their core activities, accelerate their time-to-market, and deploy applications with confidence.

Offload the Upgrade Cycle

Managed service providers specialize in maintaining up-to-date infrastructure, ensuring that businesses can benefit from the latest AWS features without the challenges of managing the upgrade process with internal resources. For many organizations, K8s upgrades require time from your senior engineers to prepare, research, and test before rolling out the changes. That effort includes keeping critical Kubernetes add-ons up to date across every cluster, which can quickly become a major operational and security burden. Leveraging managed services both minimizes the risk of paying extended support fees and enables internal resources to focus your organization’s strategic initiatives.

Eliminate the Pager Burden

Beyond upgrade management, managed services can also take on the operational responsibilities associated with cloud infrastructure, including on-call duties for your infrastructure. It can be difficult to hire the right person to carry responsibility for the pager, because you need a site reliability engineer who is experienced enough to handle all your organization’s internal needs who is also willing to carry a pager. Outsourcing responsibility for your Kubernetes infrastructure ensures that your infra is quiet and secure, so you can skip those 3 AM pages if there’s an infrastructure issue.

Transform an EKS Challenge into a FinOps Opportunity

AWS’s extended support price increases illustrate a shift in how businesses need to manage their cloud infrastructure. By viewing version control as a key FinOps responsibility and approaching EKS upgrades as strategic investments, engineering teams can navigate these changes while better managing cloud spend and Kubernetes infrastructure. Partnering with a managed service provider can help organizations quickly upgrade to a supported version of EKS, improving reliability, security, and cost efficiency.

Talk to a K8s expert about how to manage your EKS upgrades and control cloud costs effectively.

Originally published April 17, 2024 and revised to clarify current costs and timelines.