AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) Information

Overview

AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a fully managed container orchestration service that makes it easy to deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications using Docker containers. ECS is highly scalable, high-performance, and supports Docker containers to run and manage containers on a cluster of Amazon EC2 instances.

Key Features

• Cluster Management: ECS manages clusters of EC2 instances, providing the infrastructure for running containerized applications.
• Task Definition: Define your containers, resources, networking, and IAM roles in a task definition, which is a blueprint for running containers.
• Service Auto Scaling: Automatically scale your containerized applications based on demand, maintaining the desired number of tasks.
• Integration with AWS Services: ECS integrates with other AWS services such as IAM, CloudWatch, ALB (Application Load Balancer), and ECR (Elastic Container Registry).
• Fargate Launch Type: Run containers without managing the underlying EC2 instances, allowing you to focus on application development.

Use Cases

• Microservices: Deploy and manage microservices architectures, allowing independent scaling and deployment of different services.
• Batch Processing: Run parallel tasks such as image processing, ETL jobs, and data processing using containers.
• Hybrid Deployment: Deploy ECS on-premises using ECS Anywhere, allowing you to run containerized applications in a hybrid environment.

Exam Tips for AWS Certified Solutions Architect

• Understand the differences between ECS and other container services like EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service).
• Know the use cases for EC2 launch type vs. Fargate launch type.
• Be familiar with the integration of ECS with other AWS services like IAM, CloudWatch, and Application Load Balancer.
• Understand how ECS handles service auto-scaling and load balancing for containerized applications.