Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) is an operator designed to automate the deployment of the Elastic Stack, including components like Elasticsearch and Kibana, within Kubernetes environments. The process involves creating a Kubernetes cluster using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) across multiple zones to ensure high availability and prevent data loss. After setting up the cluster, users must configure kubectl to communicate with it and install the ECK operator. Deploying Elasticsearch clusters involves creating custom storage classes for persistent volumes and using configuration files to set up node attributes across different zones. Users can scale out the cluster by updating node configurations and can also expose the Elasticsearch service externally by configuring it as a LoadBalancer, which assigns an external IP for access. The guide concludes by encouraging users to further explore data ingestion with Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes and consider deploying additional Elastic Stack components like Kibana or Elastic APM.