From Minikube to EKS

leslie wilkey — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 11:31:38 +0000

Last week, I deployed three microservices to Kubernetes locally. This week, I deployed them to AWS EKS. What I thought would be a straightforward migration turned into a deep lesson about container platforms, cross-compilation, and production deployment patterns.

Here's what actually happened when theory met reality.

The Confidence Before the Crash
After successfully deploying to Minikube, I felt ready. I had working Kubernetes manifests, healthy pods, and services communicating properly. Moving to EKS seemed like the natural next step - just point kubectl at a different cluster, right?

I provisioned an EKS cluster, updated my kubeconfig, and confidently deployed all three services

The Training Wheel Must Come Off

leslie wilkey — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 09:13:55 +0000

Like many that have come before me, I have landed in Tutorial Hell. When learning to program, Tutorial Hell is when you're stuck feeling unprepared, feeling that you need just one more video or article or tutorial. It is an insidious cycle. For me, I feel confident during a lecture or tutorial. I'm following the instructions, and I feel like I understand why we are doing each step. Then I feel like the rug is pulled out from under me when I go to start building on my own. So, I turn back to the tutorial, and the cycle continues.

Why is this happening? And How do I get out?

To use the training wheels metaphor: I ride my bike with the training wheels from point A to point B, and I feel great, so I take the training wheels off. When I start to ride I immediately fall over. This happens because the training wheels can help you practice the motions of riding a bike, but they remove the resistance, the need to balance. However, the skill of riding a bike is balancing. In other words, training wheels will allow you to practice the motions you need in order to practice and develop the skill of balancing on your bike, but they will prevent you from practicing the skill of balancing on your bike. This is contradiction of learning. You need something to practice the motions, but then you have to use the motions to struggle against a problem.

Future: leslie wilkey

From Minikube to EKS

The Training Wheel Must Come Off