Amazon ECS Using Fargate Launch Type | Overview & Hands-On with twtechspringapp.

Amazon ECS Using Fargate Launch Type - Overview & Hands-On with twtechspringapp.

Scope:

• Intro,
• The concept: Amazon ECS with Fargate Launch Type,
• Fargate Architecture (ECS + Fargate),
• Key Concepts in Fargate,
• Benefits of ECS with Fargate,
• Limitations,
• Steps to Run Containers Using Fargate,
• Sample Task Definition (Fargate),
• ECS Fargate vs EC2 Launch Type,
• Best Use Cases for ECS Fargate,
• Project: Hands-on

Intro:

• Here’s twtech overview on Amazon ECS using Fargate Launch Type, the serverless way to run containers on AWS.

 The concept: Amazon ECS with Fargate Launch Type

• Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers that lets twtech  run Docker containers without managing EC2 instances. 
• AWS handles provisioning, scaling, and infrastructure management.
• twtech defines and run tasks; 
• AWS then provisions resources behind the scenes.

 Fargate Architecture (ECS + Fargate)

Key Concepts in Fargate

Concept	Description
ECS Cluster.	Logical grouping; no EC2s in Fargate.
Task Definition.	Blueprint for containers: image, ports, CPU/mem.
Task.	A running container (or group).
Service.	Maintains desired task count and manages restarts.
Fargate Profile.	Not required (used in EKS Fargate).

✅ Benefits of ECS with Fargate

Advantage	Description
No servers to manage.	AWS provisions compute behind the scenes.
Auto scaling.	Task-based scaling via ECS Service Auto Scaling.
Secure by default.	Runs tasks in isolated compute environments.
Pay-as-you-go.	Billed per second for vCPU and memory.
Integrated with IAM.	Fine-grained access control.

❌ Limitations

Limitation	Notes
Limited OS control.	twtech can't SSH or install custom OS agents.
Fewer custom networking options.	Compared to EC2.
Limited volume support.	Only EFS and ephemeral storage.

 Steps to Run Containers Using Fargate

1. Push Docker Image to Amazon ECR
2. Create a Task Definition
• Select Fargate as the launch type
• Define CPU, memory, image, ports, and IAM role
3. Create ECS Service
• Choose Fargate launch
• Set number of tasks, VPC, subnets, and security groups
4. Deploy and Monitor
• ECS Console or CLI
• Logs via CloudWatch

 Sample Task Definition (Fargate)

# json

{

  "family": "twtech-fargate-app",

  "networkMode": "awsvpc",

  "requiresCompatibilities": ["FARGATE"],

  "cpu": "256",

  "memory": "512",

  "containerDefinitions": [

    {

      "name": "twtechspringapp",

      "image": "devopspatemf2021/twtech:twtech-spring-boot-mongo",

      "essential": true,

      "portMappings": [

        {

          "containerPort": 8080,

          "protocol": "tcp"

        }

      ]

    }

  ]

}

NB: 

• awsvpc networking mode is required for Fargate.

 ECS Fargate vs EC2 Launch Type

Feature	ECS + EC2	ECS + Fargate
Infra Management.	twtech manages EC2.	Fully managed
Startup Speed.	Slower (EC2 boot).	Faster
Cost Model.	EC2 per-hour.	Per-task (CPU/RAM/second)
OS Customization.	Full.	Limited
Use Cases.	Custom agents, long-living VMs.	Simple apps, microservices

twtech Best Use Cases for ECS Fargate

• Microservices and REST APIs,
• Scheduled batch jobs,
• Event-driven applications,
• Short-lived container tasks,
• Teams who don't want to manage infrastructure.

Project: Hands-on

• How twtech deploys Amazon ECS cluster for its Applications, and integrate with the:
• Load Balanceer (ALB), 
• Auto Scaling Group (ASG), 
• CloudWatch, 
• CloudFormation 
• other Resources.

Step-1:

Search for AWS  service:  ECS

Link of how it works:

https://youtu.be/FnFvpIsBrog

• Let’s Get started with: twtechecscluster

• Create a cluster: twtech-ecs-cluster

Create cluster

• An Amazon ECS cluster groups together tasks, and services, and allows for shared capacity and common configurations.
•  All of twtech tasks, services, and capacity must belong to a cluster.

Cluter name: : twtech-ecs-cluster

Infrastructure – optional

• Serverless (aws provides the compute infrastructure)
• twtech cluster is automatically configured for AWS Fargate (serverless) with two capacity providers. 

NB:

• twtech may also Add Amazon EC2 instances (If need be).

Network settings for Amazon EC2 instances:

• By default,  Amazon EC2 instances are launched in the default subnets for twtech default VPC. 
• To use the non-default VPC, twtech needs to specify the twtech-VPC and twtech-subnets.

Monitoring - optional

• CloudWatch Container Insights is a monitoring and troubleshooting solution for containerized applications and microservices.

Step-2:

• Deployment of cluster in progress: twtechecscluster
• Namespace: twtechecscluster

From: 

• Creation in prgress

To:  

• A Successful cluster creation: twtechecscluster

Step-3:

• twtech Verifies the Autoscaling group created from EC2 console: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• More datails of the ASG and how twtech May choose to:  Edit the configurations.

Step-4:

• twtech Verify the stacks created on:  CloudFormation
• CloudFormation  may use JSON or YAML templates to define and automate the creation, update, and deletion of resources in an AWS account. 
• This allows for consistent and repeatable deployments, version control, and simplifies infrastructure management. 

• Stacks info: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• Stacks Events: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• Stacks Resources: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• Stacks Output: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• Stacks Parameters: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• Stacks Template: infra-ECS-Cluster-twtechecscluster

• Details of ECS-cluster: twtechecscluster

 Step-5:

twtech edits ASG in the EC2 console to configure and register instances into ECS Cluster: twtechecscluster.

• Select the cluster and click open: twtechecscluster

Step-6:

twtech Edits the number of Instances from : Capacity overview

From:

To edit the : Desired capacity

• Save changes by clicking on:  update

• Alternatively: 

From:

To:

• Scroll down and update changes to save new configuration: update

• From: upgrading

To: 

Step-7:

twtech Verifies that the instances been registered to the cluster (twtechecscluster) are: Running 

Step-8: 

• twtech Verifies that instances has been registered into the cluster: twtechecscluster

Alternatively: 

• Namespace for cluster: twtechecscluster

Step-9:

• twtech accesses the Details about services in the namespace: twtechecscluster

Step-10:

• twtech may update ECS Settings for: twtechecscluster

Step-11:

• How twtech creates Task definition in the ECS cluster (twtechecscluster): twtech-task-def

twtech Creates new task definition: twtech-tasks-def

• Task definition configuration
• Task definition family , twtech Specifies a unique task definition family name.

Infrastructure requirements

• twtech Specifies the infrastructure requirements for the task definition.

NB:

• ECS Task-Execution-Role is auto-generated by:  AWS-ECS service.

Step-11:

Container – 1

• twtech defines the abosulute path to twtech Container (application) image in GitHub: devopspatemf2021/twtech:twtech-spring-boot-mongo

Step-12:

Environment variables - optional

• twtech sets environmental veriable (optional)

Step-13:

• twtech Deploys the task definition: twtech-task-def

• Details of containers from task-definition: twtech-task-def

• Details of json file from task-definition: twtech-task-def

Step-14:

• How twtech uses the task definition created (twtechwebapps-task-def) for services exposure of its applications: twtech-ecs-td-svc
• Next, twtech needs to exposure the application (devopspatemf2021/twtech:twtech-spring-boot-mongo)  wih a service(SVC): twtechspringapp-ecs-td-svc

Step-15:

• twtech Selects task definition created: twech-task-def
• twtech Assigns a service name (it is okay to use the auto-assigned name) like: twtechspringapp-task-def-service-8ys7mxxx

Environment: AWS Farget

• Existing cluster

• Deployment configuration: Scheduling strategy

Step-16:

• Networking
• twtech Creates a security group Inbound rules: allow port8080 from IPV4 everywhere

Step-17:

Load balancing - optional

• twtech Configures load balancing using Amazon Elastic Load Balancing to distribute traffic evenly across the healthy tasks in its service
• Load balancer name, assign a unique name for the load balancer.: twtech-ecs-alb

Step-18:

twtech Provisions service exposure for: devopspatemf2021/twtech:twtech-spring-boot-mongo

From: 

• Service deployment in progress

• To:

 NB:

• It may take a couple of minutes to provision Resources: successful

Step-19:

• twtech gets more details  on the health check and Metric for the service: twtechspringapp-task-def-service-8ys7ml4b

Step-20:

• twtech gets the IPaddress of the container running in the cluster:twtechspringapp
• Go to EC2 console , navigate on the menu and click open: Target Groups 

Step-21:

•  twtech accesses the application on the browser via:  Load balance DNS
•  twtech Goes to EC2 console, and navigate to : Load Balancers

Step-22:

• Form the selected application load balancer created copy the DSN

(Doman Name Service): twtechspringapp-ecs-alb-3018xxxx.us-east-2.elb.amazonaws.com

• twtech may need to Try several browsers:  google chrome

NB:

• Some browsers are not compatible

• Try several browsers:  Firefox Mozilla
• twtech has successfully: 
• created an EC2 cluster using farget luanch type, 
• added its application that is hosted in ECR, 
• configured for Auto-scaling, 
• only requiped port opened on the inboud rule for the application,
• Provisioned the service discovery and its application is running seamlessly in the serverlesss infra.

NB:

• Below, are Other Resouces provisioned like the Load balancer: twtch-ecs-alb

• Resouces created security group: ecs-sg

• Resouces created target group: twtech-ecs-tg

• Resouces created CloudFormation: twtech-task-def-service
• From: CREATE_IN_PROGRESS

• To: CREATE_COMPLETE

Tasks running in the cluster:

•        twtechspringapp
•        twtechspringapp-svc

• Clicking on each task, we can give more details: configuration

• Clicking on each task, we can give more details: Logs 

• Clicking on each task we can give more details: Network 

• Clicking on each task, we can give more details: Tags 

• Clicking on each service we can give more details: Events

• Other details: Resoource map

• Monitoring: ALB

• Monitoring: Target group

• Health check settings: Edit

Step-23:

• How twech scale-out (increases) or Scale-in(reduces) tasks by  re-configuring the service: Edit
• twtech Goes to cluster, then select the service to:  update configuration.

• scale-out from: 1

• To: 5 replicas

• Scroll down to Save changes: update 

• Number of tasks and IPaddres increase: 5 each

NB:                                                                             

• With the application load balancer attached to the cluster:  traffic is evenly distributed to all the applications.