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After connecting your cloud account, you can create a cluster. Porter handles all the complexity of cluster provisioning, including networking, load balancers, and node groups.

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Provisioning Your Cluster

1

Review costs

Porter displays estimated monthly costs for your infrastructure (~$225/month for AWS).These estimates are for the default cluster configuration. Actual costs vary based on usage, region, and customizations.Review the cost breakdown and click Accept to continue.
2

Configure your cluster

Porter pre-configures your cluster with sensible defaults:
  • Cluster name: Auto-generated based on your project
  • Region: Defaults to us-east-1
  • Node groups: EKS clusters are initialially provisioning with cost-optimal node groups. You can edit your node group configuration after provisioning is complete
For guidance on choosing a region: if you have an external database, choose that region or a region as close as possible. Otherwise, choose a region near your primary customer base.
You can customize these settings or accept the defaults.
3

Handle quota limits (if needed)

If AWS is limiting your account’s resource quota, Porter displays a warning and offers to auto-request quota increases on your behalf.Allow Porter to auto-request AWS quota is enabled by default. This is the recommended approach.Alternatively, you can manually request quota increases through the AWS Service Quotas console. If you go the manual route, you won’t be able to provision until the quota increase requests are approved.
4

Provision

Click Provision to start creating your infrastructure.
Provisioning takes approximately 30-45 minutes. You can close the browser and return later — Porter continues working in the background.

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Troubleshooting

If your cluster has been provisioning for more than 45 minutes, there may be an issue:
  • Verify that the IAM role still exists in your AWS account
  • Check your AWS Service Quotas to ensure they were approved
  • Verify that the selected region supports the requested instance types
If issues persist, contact us through the dashboard chat bot with your project ID.
If you encounter permission errors:
  • Verify the CloudFormation stack created successfully and the role exists
  • Ensure the role has not been modified after creation
  • Check that your AWS account has not applied SCPs (Service Control Policies) that restrict Porter’s actions
AWS typically approves quota increases automatically, but some may require manual review:
  • Check the status of quota requests in the AWS Service Quotas console
  • Requests under manual review typically take 24-48 hours
  • If urgent, contact AWS support to expedite the review
If the CloudFormation stack fails to create:
  • Ensure you have sufficient permissions in your AWS account to create IAM roles
  • Check that you’re logged into the correct AWS account (the account ID should match)
  • Verify your account is in good standing and billing is enabled

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After Provisioning

Once your cluster is ready, you’ll see the Porter dashboard. From here you can:

Deploy your first app

Deploy an application from GitHub or a container registry.

Configure node groups

Customize instance types and scaling settings.

Cluster observability

Monitor cluster health and resource usage.