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2026-03-31

Upgrading EKS clusters to v1.35

#kubernetes  #upgrade  #eks 

We are rolling out EKS v1.35. Please make sure to update to our recommended client versions matching this upgrade. This upgrade brings In-Place Pod Resource Updates to stable and introduces Pod Certificates for workload identity as beta.

Timeline:

  • Testing & rollout to non-production clusters has happened in the past days
  • Production rollouts are scheduled for next week, starting 7/04

Important changes between K8s 1.34 and 1.35

This following list is a selection of the most important changes in Kubernetes 1.35 from a user point of view:

  • In-Place Pod Resource Updates (Stable): You can now adjust CPU and memory resources on running Pods without restarting containers. This enables non-disruptive vertical scaling for stateful and batch applications. See the In-Place Update of Pod Resources documentation for usage examples.
  • Pod Certificates for Workload Identity (Beta): Native workload identity with automated certificate rotation. The kubelet generates keys and requests certificates via PodCertificateRequest, supporting zero-trust mutual TLS between pods.
  • PreferSameNode Traffic Distribution (Stable): A new PreferSameNode option for the trafficDistribution field on Services, strictly prioritizing endpoints on the local node before routing elsewhere. Also renamed PreferClose to PreferSameZone for clarity.
  • StatefulSet MaxUnavailable (Beta): Enables parallel Pod updates for StatefulSets, allowing updates up to 60% faster than sequential one-at-a-time rollouts.

For detailed info on what’s new and changed, please make sure to check the Kubernetes 1.35 release announcement and the full Kubernetes 1.35.x changelog.

EKS specific updates

AWS EKS 1.35 announcement and release notes.

In the process of upgrading EKS, we have also upgraded the following components:

  • AWS EKS AMI to the latest version v20260318
  • AWS EBS CSI Driver to v1.57.1-eksbuild.1
  • CoreDNS to v1.13.2-eksbuild.4
  • CSI Snapshot Controller to v8.5.0-eksbuild.3
  • KubeProxy to v1.35.2-eksbuild.4
  • Metrics Server to v0.8.1-eksbuild.1
  • Node Monitoring Agent to v1.6.2-eksbuild.1