Today we're announcing that the Azure Arc Multuicloud Connector Arc onboarding solution for Kubernetes clusters is in public preview for both Amazon EKS and Google GKE! With this release, the Multicloud Connector automatically discovers eligible EKS clusters in your connected AWS accounts and GKE clusters in your connected GCP projects and onboards them to Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes - so you can see and govern them alongside your Azure and Arc-enabled resources.
What's New
When using the EKS Arc onboarding or GKE Arc onboarding solution, the Azure Arc Multicloud Connector:
- Discovers eligible EKS or GKE clusters across the source cloud regions you choose
- Represents them in Azure so they're visible alongside your Azure and Arc-enabled resources
- Installs the Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes agents on the clusters you select
- Keeps syncing on a schedule you define, picking up new clusters as they appear
No scripting or per-cluster onboarding required.
Once a cluster is Arc-enabled, it becomes a first-class Azure resource. That unlocks the Azure management, governance, and security:
- Governance at scale with Azure Policy for Kubernetes, applied consistently across AKS, EKS, and GKE.
- Security posture and threat protection through Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
- Observability with Azure Monitor container insights.
- GitOps-based configuration and app deployment with Flux v2 and Arc-enabled Kubernetes extensions.
- A single inventory you can query with Azure Resource Graph - including metadata and tags carried over from the source cloud.
What's in the preview
- Automatic discovery and onboarding: Enable the EKS or GKE Arc onboarding solution on a connected public cloud, and the connector scans your selected regions for eligible clusters, surfaces them in Azure, and installs the Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes agents on the clusters you choose.
- Flexible connectivity: When you configure the solution, you can specify:
- HTTP/HTTPS proxy settings and proxy skip ranges
- An Azure Arc gateway resource, if you want Arc traffic to route through Arc gateway
- Periodic sync: Set a sync interval and the connector keeps working after day one. It evaluates newly discovered clusters against your onboarding criteria, retries clusters where onboarding previously failed, and keeps the Azure representation aligned with the source cloud as clusters come and go. You can also turn periodic sync off if you'd rather onboard on your own schedule.
- Scoping with filters: Filter eligible clusters by
- Source cloud region - choose exactly which AWS or GCP regions get scanned
- Source cloud tags or labels - AWS tags and GCP labels are both supported, and matching is case-insensitive
- Visibility into onboarding state: Discovered clusters show their connectivity status directly in the portal, so you can tell at a glance where things stand.
Get Started
- Connect your cloud. Follow Add a public cloud with the multicloud connector to link your AWS account or GCP project and review prerequisites.
- Check readiness. Confirm your clusters meet the Arc-enabled Kubernetes system requirements, sit in a supported source-cloud region, and aren't already connected to Arc.
- Enable the solution. Use Onboard Amazon EKS and GKE clusters to Azure Arc for the full walkthrough - the page has separate tabs for AWS EKS and GCP GKE.
Preview notes
Both the EKS and GKE Arc onboarding solutions are in preview. A few things to know before you plan a rollout:
- Only EKS clusters in AWS and GKE clusters in GCP are supported today.
- Clusters already connected to Azure Arc should keep using their existing Arc-enabled Kubernetes resource - onboarding them again may create duplicate representations or fail.
- Individual Azure services for Arc-enabled Kubernetes carry their own regional and feature availability requirements.
Preview features are governed by the Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews.
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