🚀 Running Applications on Amazon EKS with Fargate + ALB Controller

Kubernetes has become the go-to standard for container orchestration.
But let’s be honest — managing nodes, scaling clusters, and configuring networking can feel overwhelming 😅.

That’s where Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) with AWS Fargate comes in.

In this blog, I’ll walk you through how I deployed the 2048 Game app on EKS using Fargate and exposed it to the internet with the AWS Load Balancer Controller.

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🔎 Why EKS + Fargate?

• No worker node management — AWS runs the nodes for you

• Pay only for what you use — serverless model

• Seamless integration — IAM, VPC, and ALB work out-of-the-box

• High availability — backed by AWS-managed infra

If you’re a DevOps engineer or cloud enthusiast, this setup saves you time ⏳ and reduces operational complexity.

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⚡ Project Overview

🛠 Tools Required

• AWS CLI & eksctl

• kubectl

• IAM OIDC provider

• AWS Load Balancer Controller

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🏗 Step 1: Create an EKS Cluster with Fargate

eksctl create cluster \
  --name demo-cluster \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --fargate

This sets up a cluster in us-east-1 with Fargate profiles (no EC2 worker nodes needed).

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🔐 Step 2: Setup IAM OIDC Provider

eksctl utils associate-iam-oidc-provider \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --cluster demo-cluster \
  --approve

This allows Kubernetes service accounts to securely talk to AWS services.

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🌐 Step 3: Deploy the AWS Load Balancer Controller

The Load Balancer Controller helps manage Application Load Balancers (ALB) and Network Load Balancers (NLB) for Kubernetes Ingress.

kubectl apply -k github.com/aws/eks-charts/stable/aws-load-balancer-controller//crds?ref=master

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🎮 Step 4: Deploy the 2048 Game App

kubectl apply -f 2048_full.yaml

This manifest includes:

• Deployment (pods running the app)

• Service (exposing pods internally)

• Ingress (mapping requests via ALB)

Check ingress:

kubectl get ingress -n game-2048

Output will give you the ALB DNS name → paste it in your browser and 🎉 enjoy the 2048 game.

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📊 EKS vs. Self-Managed Kubernetes

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💡 Key Takeaways

• EKS + Fargate = No infra headaches ⚡

• Load Balancer Controller = Easy ingress setup

• Perfect for DevOps projects, demos, or learning Kubernetes without managing EC2 nodes.