Oracle has added support for mixed node clusters in its OCI Kubernetes Engine (OKE) service, diversifying Kubernetes workload management within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

OKE now offers three node types within one cluster. These include Managed Nodes, made up of OCI Compute instances, which maintain lifecycle infrastructure through the OKE API. According to Oracle, these offer granular control over the node’s configuration to handle workloads needing specific hardware access, persistent storage, or predictable performance.

Serverless Virtual Nodes are also included in the cluster, abstracting away the underlying infrastructure to help run containers at scale without the need to alter the node infrastructure, allowing for highly elastic and stateless applications.

OCI Compute will also be able to manage Self-Managed Nodes of their own creation as part of the OKE bundle.

Mickey Boxell, product manager on the Oracle Containers and Kubernetes Services team, said the new service does away with the need for separate clusters to accommodate various use cases, which often added operational complexity, increased management overhead, and inefficient use of resources. OKE’s new mixed node support aims to address these issues, promising a unified, efficient, and flexible platform that supports the most appropriate infrastructure for all workload types.

“Traditional databases or stateful applications require predictable performance, specific hardware configurations, and a high degree of control over the underlying infrastructure … Other workloads, such as stateless microservices, demand elastic scaling, a serverless operational model, and minimal management overhead. The new class of AI/ML workloads presents yet another set of requirements: access to GPU accelerators and high-performance, low-latency RDMA networking, and more.”

Boxell claimed OKE’s new mixed node support offered an integrated, high-performance, and adaptable platform designed to enable the ideal infrastructure for every class of workload.

The Oracle updates come after Amazon Web Services (AWS) teamed up with SUSE on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) Capabilities.

Unveiled at AWS re:Invent 2025, the offering aims to streamline workload orchestration, AWS cloud resource management, and Kubernetes resource composition and orchestration with open source integrations including Argo CD, AWS Controllers for Kubernetes, and Kube Resource Orchestrator.