Upgrading an Amazon EKS cluster is usually seen as a routine maintenance task. You update the Kubernetes version -> upgrade your add-ons -> refresh your worker nodes, and move on. However, our EKS 1.32 → 1.33 upgrade was different. This was not just a Kubernetes version upgrade. It was a major operating system transition because EKS 1.33 no longer provides EKS-optimized Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) AMIs. This meant our worker nodes had to move to Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023) (or anoth

Cloud servers can cost a lot of money. But there is a smart way to save cash: use Spot Instances (Google calls them Preemptible VMs). They are leftover servers that the cloud provider sells with a huge discount, often up to 90% off. The only problem? The cloud provider can take them back with almost no warning if a full-paying customer needs them. Because of this risk, you cannot run your whole website or app on Spot servers. If they disappear, your app crashes. You need a mi