Upgrade Amazon EKS Clusters with Peace of Mind Using the Kubernetes Version Rollback Feature

Until now, Kubernetes control planes could not be reverted to a previous state after an upgrade. This has made it difficult for many organizations to apply the latest versions containing security patches, due to fear of upgrade failures.

Now, Amazon EKS has introduced a Version Rollbacks feature that provides cluster administrators with a safety net. If compatibility issues or other problems are discovered after an upgrade, you can revert the cluster to its previous working state within 7 days of the upgrade.

Key features include the following:

• Verified Version Recovery: Rather than a simple emulation, it restores to a verified version that was previously actually running in production.
• Safe Rollback Support: Through Cluster Insights, node version compatibility and add-on dependencies are automatically assessed to inform rollback readiness.
• EKS Auto Mode Support: For EKS Auto Mode users, where the control plane and managed nodes must be rolled back together, a Cancel API is provided to allow control over the rollback process.

This feature applies to both managed nodes and self-managed nodes, and proceeds while adhering to Pod Disruption Budgets by default for workload stability.