Deployed a Scalable Nginx App on AWS EKS Using Kubernetes

#webdev #ai #devops #productivity

I've been building as a DevOps engineer for a while now, so I decided to take on this project using Kubernetes. And it changed how I see infrastructure entirely.

I built the Nginx app running behind an AWS Elastic Load Balancer, provisioned automatically by Kubernetes on EKS.

Here's what the journey looked like:

I created my first pod and learned the hard way that pods are immutable; you can't edit a running one; you must delete and recreate it.
I set up replica sets, deleted a pod, and watched Kubernetes replace it in seconds. Auto-healing in action.
I configured deployments with rolling updates, zero downtime, and instant rollbacks. Version control for infrastructure.
I configured HPA for auto-scaling based on CPU. At 5 pm, when traffic spikes, Kubernetes handles it, not me.
I wired up readiness & liveness probes and learned about "running" and "ready." These two probes are what make Kubernetes intelligent.

I worked through Services; this is where it all came together:

ClusterIP: stable internal DNS. No more chasing Pod IPs.
Node Port: external access without a cloud LB.
Load Balancer: one YAML field change → real public AWS ELB provisioned automatically.

The moment my curl hit that public URL, backed by a Kubernetes cluster I built myself, it stopped being theory.

The struggles were real. Memory limits on a 3.8GB machine. Errors I didn't understand at 1 pm. Moments where I wanted to close the laptop and walk away.

But I didn't. And I'm so glad.
I want to sincerely thank my mentors, Pravin Mishra, Praveen Pandey, Abhishek Makwana, Mobarak Hosen, Onuche Paul and Nkechi Anna Ahanonye