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Add AWS Variant for EKS Deployment

Description

Add an AWS variant template (gitlab-ci-helm-aws.yml) to enable deployment of Helm charts to Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) clusters using GitLab CI/CD with AWS OIDC authentication.

Currently, the Helm template supports:

  • GCP variant for deploying to GKE clusters
  • Vault variant for secret management

However, there's no native support for AWS EKS deployments. Users deploying to AWS EKS need to manually configure AWS authentication, kubeconfig, and handle private cluster scenarios.

Why This is Needed

  1. AWS is a major cloud provider: Many organizations use AWS EKS for their Kubernetes workloads
  2. Security best practices: Leverage GitLab's OIDC integration with AWS to avoid storing long-lived credentials
  3. Consistency: Provide the same level of integration for AWS as we have for GCP

Use Cases

  • Deploy Helm charts to public EKS clusters
  • Deploy to private EKS clusters (with SSM tunneling)
  • Secure authentication using AWS OIDC (no access keys in variables)