Build an EKS Environment Factory with Pulumi and vCluster

Deloitte's transition to a virtual cluster model on Amazon EKS, as highlighted in an AWS Architecture Blog case study, resulted in a dramatic 89% reduction in the time required to provision testing environments and saved approximately 500 QA hours annually. By consolidating numerous clusters into a single host cluster with over 50 virtual cluster (vCluster) instances, Deloitte implemented an "Environment Factory" pattern that enables on-demand, isolated, ephemeral Kubernetes environments without the costs and delays of full cluster provisioning. The architecture involves a single, reliable host cluster managed with EKS Auto Mode, which automates infrastructure management, and tenant environments that run as pods within host namespaces, allowing for separation and management of resources while maintaining cost-efficiency and fast startup times. The solution integrates Pulumi to orchestrate the EKS Auto Mode and vCluster, and includes setup for namespaces, resource quotas, and role-based access controls to ensure secure and efficient resource management. By leveraging Pulumi with EKS Auto Mode and vCluster, organizations can create scalable and cost-effective development environments that provide necessary isolation for developers while maintaining overall platform efficiency.