Here's the most important information, guides, and tutorials to bring you up to speed on using the platform.

What is Cast AI, and what does it help you achieve?

Cast AI is an all-in-one Kubernetes automation, optimization, security, and cost management platform. It abstracts layers of provider-specific technical complexity so that you can easily manage Kubernetes operations on all three major cloud providers (GCP, AWS, Azure) and beyond with Cast AI Anywhere.

The platform includes cost monitoring for real-time and longer-period cost reports at the cluster, namespace, and workload levels. It also offers cost optimization suggestions and automatic optimization using autoscaling, Spot Instance automation, bin packing, and other features.

At the same time, Cast AI also checks your cluster security configuration for misconfigurations and potential vulnerabilities and automatically prioritizes fixes to improve your security posture. It also lets you scan your cluster against industry standards, including CIS Benchmarks and many more.

Key platform features

Supported providers

• Amazon EKS
• Google GKE
• Microsoft AKS
• Microsoft Azure for Government
• RedHat OpenShift Service on AWS (Cost Monitoring and Optimization insights)
• kOps on AWS (Cost Monitoring and Optimization insights)
• Cast AI Anywhere - for any Kubernetes cluster, including on-premises, other cloud providers, or hybrid environments (Read more)

How to get started in 5 minutes or less

There are two ways to get started with Cast AI:

Step 1: Agentless discovery (Cloud Connect)

For AWS and GCP customers, Cast AI offers an agentless approach to discover your clusters without installing any components:

1. Head to console.cast.ai to open a free account.

2. Connect your cloud – Click on Connect Cloud and run the provided script in your cloud shell or terminal. This gives Cast AI read-only access to discover your existing clusters across your cloud account.

3. Required permissions:

   • For AWS: The script creates an IAM role (castai-discovery-role) in your AWS account with the following actions:

     • Sets a trust policy allowing Cast AI to assume the role securely using your Cast AI organization ID as an external ID
     • Attaches the AWS-managed ReadOnlyAccess policy to ensure only read-level access
     • When reading cluster data, Cast AI assumes this role on your account

   • For GCP: The script requires organization-level admin permissions (or project-level permissions for each project you want to discover). Cast AI receives the standard Reader role, which provides read-only access to resources.

   Currently, this is a one-time discovery process (think of it as a "snapshot" of your clusters at the time you run the script). Continuous synchronization is planned for future releases.

4. View discovered clusters – All your clusters will appear as Discovered in the console. You can see the optimization potential of these clusters without installing any components.

5. Onboard clusters – Select any discovered cluster to onboard it to Cast AI by installing the read-only agent to start saving on your infrastructure costs.

Step 2: Install the read-only agent

1. Connect your cluster – Select any discovered cluster to onboard it to Cast AI by installing a read-only agent in your terminal or cloud shell. You will be guided through the process in the console.

2. Run a savings report to see how much you can save by adjusting your cluster configuration settings.

3. Explore the proposed savings and implement them automatically. Start by setting the Autoscaler policies to manage the process for you.

4. Check your cost monitoring and cluster security reports to get a detailed breakdown of your expenses and assess your security posture against industry standards and best practices.

5. Get even deeper security insights. We provide the Security Report feature that lets you see vulnerabilities of all your container images running across your clusters and get a deeper Kubernetes misconfiguration analysis. Read the Getting Started section to enable this feature.

Alternatively, if you can't connect your own cluster right now, you can use Cast AI's demo module to explore the insights the platform can provide.

Working with non-standard environments

If you're running Kubernetes in environments beyond the major cloud providers—such as on-premises, other cloud providers, or hybrid setups—Cast AI Anywhere gives you access to our workload optimization and resource consolidation features. While it doesn't include all the features available for major cloud providers, it delivers significant cost savings through resource efficiency.

Prerequisites

Cast AI doesn't require much technical knowledge, but you need the following:

• basic understanding of how to run a Kubernetes cluster in the public cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) or other environments;
• working knowledge of the kubectl command line utility for creating and managing Kubernetes clusters.

Where to get help