# Deploy an Amazon EKS cluster on AWS Graviton with Rafay

## In this learning path

- [Introduction](https://learn.arm.com/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/rafay-eks/)
- [Set up Rafay and AWS access](https://learn.arm.com/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/rafay-eks/setup/)
- [Create an Amazon EKS cluster using a Rafay cluster manifest](https://learn.arm.com/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/rafay-eks/cluster/)
- [Deploy NGINX to the Amazon EKS cluster and clean up](https://learn.arm.com/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/rafay-eks/nginx/)
- [Next Steps](https://learn.arm.com/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/rafay-eks/_next-steps/)

## About this Learning Path

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Skill level: | Advanced |
| Reading time: | 1 hr |
| Last updated: | 03 Nov 2026 |

### Authors:
- Jason Andrews, Arm  
  [GitHub](https://github.com/jasonrandrews)  
  [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/jason-andrews-7b05a8)
- Steve Jordahl, Rafay

### Arm IP:
[Neoverse](https://support.arm.com/?tab=compute-ip&Product%20Type=Infrastructure%20Processors)

### Tags:
- [Containers and Virtualization](https://learn.arm.com/tag/containers-and-virtualization/)
- [AWS Graviton](https://learn.arm.com/tag/aws-graviton)
- [Linux](https://learn.arm.com/tag/linux)
- [Kubernetes](https://learn.arm.com/tag/kubernetes)
- [Amazon EKS](https://learn.arm.com/tag/amazon-eks)
- [Rafay](https://learn.arm.com/tag/rafay)
- [NGINX](https://learn.arm.com/tag/nginx)
- [rctl](https://learn.arm.com/tag/rctl)

### Who is this for?
This is an advanced topic for software developers familiar with Kubernetes and AWS who want to learn how to use the Rafay platform to provision and manage EKS clusters backed by AWS Graviton-based instances.

### What will you learn?
After completing this Learning Path, you'll be able to perform the following tasks:
- Connect your AWS account to the Rafay platform using a cross-account IAM role
- Provision an Amazon EKS cluster with an AWS Graviton-based node group using Rafay
- Deploy and verify workloads on arm64 nodes and clean up all cloud resources

### Prerequisites
Before starting, you'll need the following prerequisites:
- An Amazon Web Services (AWS) [account](https://aws.amazon.com/) with sufficient IAM permissions to create roles, EKS clusters, EC2 instances, CloudFormation stacks, and related resources.
- A [Rafay account](https://rafay.co).
- The [AWS CLI](https://learn.arm.com/install-guides/aws-cli/) installed and configured.

### Summary
You’ll provision an Amazon EKS cluster on Arm using the Rafay Kubernetes Operations Platform and validate workloads on AWS Graviton-based nodes. First, you’ll define a declarative cluster manifest in Rafay referencing an existing project, blueprint, and cloud credential. Then, you’ll create the EKS cluster and deploy NGINX pinned to arm64 to confirm scheduling on Graviton-based instances. Finally, you’ll remove the NGINX workload and deprovision the EKS resources to avoid ongoing cloud costs.