Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Auto Mode incorporated support for Amazon Application Recovery Controller (ARC) zonal shift, automating the rerouting of in-cluster traffic and management of node provisioning during impaired Availability Zones (AZs). This feature helps ensure Kubernetes application availability by stopping new capacity provisioning and voluntary disruptions in the affected AZ while protecting dependent zones. Upon resolution or cancellation, normal operations resume automatically.
The zonal shift functionality operates at no added customer cost or need for manual setup within EKS Auto Mode, which manages compute resources on behalf of customers. It supports both manual shifts and automated autoshift with practice runs to verify cluster behavior. The feature is available in all AWS regions offering EKS Auto Mode. While AWS outlines operational behavior, independent studies on its effectiveness remain unavailable.
Source & further reading
Amazon EKS Auto Mode now supports Application Recovery Controller zonal shift ↗Source published 2026-07-10. This report was prepared with AI assistance from the linked primary-source material. Claims and limitations should be checked against the original announcement or research.