A Beginner's Guide to ECS and AWS Fargate
Containerization has become a popular approach for deploying and managing applications. This is because, Containers provide a portable and easy way to package applications along with their dependencies, making them easy to manage and deploy across multiple environments.
AWS ECS is a service that provides container orchestration and along with using AWS Fargate, it eradicates the need to manage underlying infrastructure for your containers or application.
What is a Container?
A container or a docker container is a standalone and lightweight executable software package containing everything from dependencies, tools, and configurations to the operating system or runtime of an application.
Containerizing your application allows them to be platform-independent since the application runtime and environment configuration have been packaged together.
What is ECS (Elastic Container Service)?
ECS is a fully managed AWS container orchestration service, that allows you to run and manage containers on AWS. ECS supports two types of launch type: managed (EC2) and serverless (Fargate).
The term "launch type" refers to how containers are launched and managed within the ECS cluster.
EC2 Launch Type
With the EC2 launch type, containers are launched on EC2 instances that you manage. You need to provision and manage the underlying EC2 instances yourself. In this launch type, you have more control over the infrastructure and can customize the EC2 instances to meet your specific requirements. You can choose instance types, manage networking, and have more flexibility in terms of resource allocation and customization. This launch type is suitable if you have existing EC2 infrastructure or if you require fine-grained control over the underlying resources.
Fargate Launch Type
Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers. It abstracts the underlying infrastructure and allows you to focus solely on running and managing your containers. With Fargate, you don't need to provision or manage any EC2 instances. Instead, you specify the resources (CPU and memory) required by your containers, and AWS takes care of provisioning the necessary infrastructure to run your containers. Fargate is ideal if you want a serverless experience and don't want to deal with the overhead of managing EC2 instances.
Basic Concepts
To effectively use ECS and Fargate, it's important to understand a few key concepts:
Clusters
A cluster is a logical grouping of container instances, tasks, and services. It provides the environment where your containers run. You can have multiple clusters within your AWS account, each serving a different purpose or representing a different application.
Task Definition
Task definitions define how a container should be run. They include information such as the Docker image to use, resource requirements, networking configuration, and storage options. Task definitions allow you to define multiple containers that work together as a group, known as a task.
Task
Tasks are created based on predefined task definitions in ECS (Elastic Container Service). They can be either a single running container or a group of containers working together. You can specify how many tasks you want to run, and ECS makes sure that the specified number of tasks are always running.
Service
Services in ECS help you maintain the desired state of your tasks. They ensure that a specified number of tasks are running and automatically handle scaling, load balancing, and rolling updates. Services are particularly useful when you need to run multiple instances of your application for high availability or to handle increased traffic.
Conclusion
AWS Fargate and Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) provide a robust and scalable platform for running containerized applications in the AWS cloud. With Fargate, you can enjoy the benefits of serverless computing, while ECS gives you more control over the underlying infrastructure. By understanding the basic concepts and following the steps outlined in this beginner's guide, you can get started with ECS and Fargate and leverage their power to deploy and manage your containerized applications effectively.
Remember to consult the official AWS documentation and user guides for detailed instructions and best practices as you explore the vast capabilities of AWS Fargate and ECS.