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How to Create a Kubernetes Cluster

How-to · Updated Jun 2026

Coming from another cloud?

▸AWS·Amazon EKS Cluster

Amazon EKS Clusterhigh

  • EKS control plane fully AWS-managed, single-tenant, across 3 AZs with auto scale/replace; on Quake AI you run the control plane on Nova instances, provisioned through Magnum or self-managed with OpenTofu, and you operate it.
  • EKS regional API endpoint with SLA; Quake AI exposes the kube API via Neutron LB with floating IP.
  • EKS charges a per-hour cluster platform fee on top of the underlying compute; Quake AI charges only for underlying Nova/Neutron/Cinder resources with no K8s platform fee.
  • EKS managed nodes auto AMI updates, Spot integration; Quake AI self-managed nodes require manual OS image selection and update management.
AWS docs ↗
▸Azure·AKS Cluster

AKS Clusterhigh

  • Azure automatically provisions and manages the control plane at no additional cost (Free tier) or fixed fee (Standard tier with SLA), offloading health monitoring and upgrades; on Quake AI you provision a cluster through Magnum (openstack coe cluster create) or self-managed Kubernetes on Nova instances (OpenTofu plus kubeadm, k3s, or RKE2), and you operate the cluster after creation.
  • No OpenStack integration; uses Azure Resource Manager for cluster lifecycle.
  • Pre-configured with Azure-specific defaults and add-ons like application routing.
  • Managed via Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) with auto-scaling and upgrades; Quake AI uses Nova instances provisioned via OpenTofu with user-managed scaling and upgrades.
Azure docs ↗
▸DigitalOcean·Doks

This Quake AI feature maps to DigitalOcean’s Doks.

▸Google Cloud·GKE Cluster

GKE Clusterhigh

  • GKE provides Autopilot mode with fully managed node provisioning and scaling by Google; on Quake AI you provision clusters through Magnum or self-managed Kubernetes on Nova instances and manage node scaling yourself.
  • Control plane is fully managed with automatic upgrades through release channels; Quake AI requires user-provisioned and user-managed control plane nodes.
  • Cluster creation uses gcloud CLI vs OpenStack CLI (openstack coe cluster create).
  • Custom machine types, spot VMs, accelerators in node pools; Quake AI K8s nodes use standard Nova flavors.
Google Cloud docs ↗
▸Hetzner·Kubernetes

This Quake AI feature maps to Hetzner’s Kubernetes.

How to create a Kubernetes cluster

Deploy a Kubernetes cluster with master and worker nodes from an existing cluster template. The Kubernetes service provisions the VMs, networking, and stable control-plane endpoints, giving you a working cluster you can manage with kubectl.

Prerequisites

Windows: CLI examples use bash. Set up a Linux CLI environment on Windows before proceeding.

  • A cluster template that defines the Kubernetes version, default flavor, and network configuration
  • An SSH key pair uploaded to your account
  • Sufficient project quota for the planned cluster size. A minimal 1-master + 1-worker cluster on c2a.xlarge + c2a.large consumes 6000 of the default-tier 8000 compute_units budget. See Sizing and quota on the template page for the flavor-to-compute_units table; check the live total with openstack limits show --absolute before sizing.

Create the cluster#

Verify the result#

Next steps#

Usage Guidelines

The sample code, software libraries, command line tools, proofs of concept, templates, and other related technology on this page (including any of the foregoing that is provided by Quake AI personnel) is provided to you as Quake AI Content under the Quake AI Customer Agreement, or the relevant written agreement between you and Quake AI (whichever applies). Do not use this Quake AI Content in your production accounts, or on production or other critical data. You are responsible for testing, securing, and optimizing the Quake AI Content (such as sample code) as appropriate for production grade use based on your specific quality control practices and standards. Deploying Quake AI Content may incur Quake AI charges for creating or using Quake AI chargeable resources, such as running Compute instances or storing data in Object Storage. Your use is also subject to the Acceptable Use Policy.

For the full policy, see Usage Guidelines.

Last validated: 04.06.2026

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