Day-48 : Amazon Elastic Container Service ECS
Today will be a great learning for sure. I know many of you may not know about the term “ECS”. As you know, 90 Days Of DevOps Challenge is mostly about ‘learning new’ , let’s learn then ;)
What is ECS ?
ECS (Elastic Container Service) is a fully-managed container orchestration service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It allows you to run and manage Docker containers on a cluster of virtual machines (EC2 instances) without having to manage the underlying infrastructure.
With ECS, you can easily deploy, manage, and scale your containerized applications using the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or the API. ECS supports both “Fargate” and “EC2 launch types”, which means you can run your containers on AWS-managed infrastructure or your own EC2 instances.
ECS also integrates with other AWS services, such as Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, and Amazon VPC, allowing you to build scalable and highly available applications. Additionally, ECS has support for Docker Compose and Kubernetes, making it easy to adopt existing container workflows.
Overall, ECS is a powerful and flexible container orchestration service that can help simplify the deployment and management of containerized applications in AWS.
Difference between EKS and ECS ?
EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) and ECS (Elastic Container Service) are both container orchestration platforms provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). While both platforms allow you to run containerized applications in the AWS cloud, there are some differences between the two.
Architecture
ECS is based on a centralized architecture, where there is a control plane that manages the scheduling of containers on EC2 instances. On the other hand, EKS is based on a distributed architecture, where the Kubernetes control plane is distributed across multiple EC2 instances.
Kubernetes Support
EKS is a fully managed Kubernetes service, meaning that it supports Kubernetes natively and allows you to run your Kubernetes workloads on AWS without having to manage the Kubernetes control plane. ECS, on the other hand, has its own orchestration engine and does not support Kubernetes natively.
Scaling
EKS is designed to automatically scale your Kubernetes cluster based on demand, whereas ECS requires you to configure scaling policies for your tasks and services.
Flexibility
EKS provides more flexibility than ECS in terms of container orchestration, as it allows you to customize and configure Kubernetes to meet your specific requirements. ECS is more restrictive in terms of the options available for container orchestration.
Community
Kubernetes has a large and active open-source community, which means that EKS benefits from a wide range of community-driven development and support. ECS, on the other hand, has a smaller community and is largely driven by AWS itself.
In summary, EKS is a good choice if you want to use Kubernetes to manage your containerized workloads on AWS, while ECS is a good choice if you want a simpler, more managed platform for running your containerized applications.
Common use cases in Amazon ECS
Fargate is suitable for the following workloads:
- Large workloads that need to be optimized for low overhead
- Small workloads that have the occasional burst
- Tiny workloads
- Batch workloads
EC2 is suitable for the following workloads:
- Workloads that require consistently high CPU core and memory usage
- Large workloads that need to be optimized for price
- Your applications need to access persistent storage
- You must directly manage your infrastructure
ECS also integrates with other AWS services, such as Elastic Load Balancing, Auto Scaling, and Amazon VPC, allowing you to build scalable and highly available applications. Additionally, ECS has support for Docker Compose and Kubernetes, making it easy to adopt existing container workflows.
Tasks -
Task 1) Set up ECS (Elastic Container Service) by setting up Nginx on ECS.
Open AWS Console > Search ECS Service
Click on Create Cluster
Click on Create.
Create a Task Definition
In the left Panel of ECS > Select Task Definitions > Click on Create new task definitions > Create new task definition
Task definition family: Day48-task
Under Container details:
Name: nginx-container
Image URI: public.ecr.aws/nginx/nginx:latest
You can get this Image URL from Amazon ECR Public Gallery.
Let other things be as it is and click on default.
Review and Create
Create a Service
Go to ECS > Select & open the Cluster you created.
Click on Create which is next to Services.
In the Networking Tab > Let the things be default except for SG > Click on Create new SG.
Security group name: nginx-SG
Security group description: Security Group for Nginx Cluster
And configure the SG as below:
Click on create
Let’s test by accessing the Nginx container using the Public IPv4 of Fargate.
For the IP go to the Tasks tab in the ECS Cluster dashboard > Select the Task number of your task required > You can find the Public IPv4.
