AWS Fargate is a serverless way to run containers. ECS and EKS support running containerized workloads using AWS Fargate.
Let’s look at an example to better understand how Fargate helps you run serverless containers. Without Fargate, you have an EC2 instance with multiple tasks running on it. So here, to support the tasks, you have to manage the underlying instance, such as the instance OS, the container runtime, and the ECS agent, in the case of Amazon ECS. This is still quite a bit of operational overhead. You have to patch and update the OS, ECS/EKS agent, and so on, while also scaling the instance fleet for optimal utilization. All of these tasks are still required, adding management layers to your application.
AWS Fargate simplifies the management of ECS/EKS services and enables users to focus on appli- cation development rather than infrastructure management. With AWS Fargate, the provisioning of infrastructure and the management of servers is handled by AWS. The benefits of using AWS Fargate are as follows:
Why isn’t Amazon ECS or Amazon EKS enough by itself, and why would we use AWS Fargate to manage these workloads?
AWS Fargate is not a container management service in itself; it is a method to launch container services. It simplifies the management of Kubernetes and Docker deployments. Without AWS Fargate, setting up these two services would require a good understanding of how to provision, schedule, and manage Pods, services, containers, masters, and minions, as well as how to ad- minister server orchestration. Typically, you would need a skilled DevOps engineer to set this up. AWS Fargate takes the burden away from your engineers and greatly simplifies these deployments. Importantly, you don’t have to commit to using AWS Fargate from the start.
You can start by using Amazon ECS or Amazon EKS, test it out, and once the process is working, your containers can then be migrated to Amazon Fargate. This can simplify your operations and reduce the cost of running your application. Migrating to Fargate can be done by creating a new task definition, and then updating your service to use that task definition. Once that is done, you can then monitor your application to make sure it’s running correctly and make any necessary adjustments.
If AWS EC2 offers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), then AWS Fargate offers Containers as a Service (CaaS). This means that we do not need to worry about setting up containers. All the details involved in their launching are handled by AWS Fargate, including networking, security, and, most importantly, scaling. The details of how this happens are abstracted away. AWS Far- gate further simplifies the management of containers in the cloud while leveraging Amazon ECS and Amazon EKS.
Choosing between Fargate and EC2 When deciding whether to use Fargate or EC2 for running your containerized applications on ECS/EKS, there are a few factors to consider:
Control: If you want more control over the underlying infrastructure and the ability to customize it to meet your specific needs, EC2 might be the better choice. With EC2, you can choose the instance type and configure the OS and other software to meet your re- quirements. With Fargate, you don’t have direct access to the underlying infrastructure, and the resources are managed by AWS.
Ease of use: Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers, which eliminates the need to manage the underlying infrastructure, making it easier to use. With Fargate, you don’t need to worry about provisioning and scaling resources, as this is handled automatically by the service. With EC2, you are responsible for managing the underlying infrastructure.
Cost: Fargate can be more cost-effective than EC2 when you have a varying workload. With Fargate, you only pay for the resources that you actually use, whereas with EC2, you pay for the resources whether you are using them or not. However, if your workload is consistent and always on then Fargate can be costly.
Flexibility: EC2 instances can be used for more than just running containers and can be more flexible. Fargate is designed specifically for running containers, therefore it may not be a good fit for workloads that are not containerized.
In general, if you have specific requirements that aren’t met by Fargate or you want more control over the underlying infrastructure, EC2 is the way to go. If you want to minimize the operational overhead and focus on running your application, Fargate is the best option.