This example walks you through how to create an AWS Fargate service running on an Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) cluster that's fronted by an internet-facing Application Load Balancer from an image on Amazon ECR.
Amazon ECS is a highly scalable, fast, container management service that makes it easy to run, stop, and manage Docker containers on a cluster. You can host your cluster on a serverless infrastructure that's managed by Amazon ECS by launching your services or tasks using the Fargate launch type. For more control, you can host your tasks on a cluster of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances that you manage by using the Amazon EC2 launch type.
This tutorial shows you how to launch some services using the Fargate launch type. If you've used the AWS Management Console to create a Fargate service, you know that there are many steps to follow to accomplish that task. AWS has several tutorials and documentation topics that walk you through creating a Fargate service, including:
- How to Deploy Docker Containers - AWS
- Setting Up with Amazon ECS
- Getting Started with Amazon ECS Using Fargate
This example creates a similar Fargate service in AWS CDK code.
The Amazon ECS construct used in this tutorial helps you use AWS services by providing the following benefits:
-
Automatically configures a load balancer.
-
Automatically opens a security group for load balancers. This enables load balancers to communicate with instances without you explicitly creating a security group.
-
Automatically orders dependency between the service and the load balancer attaching to a target group, where the AWS CDK enforces the correct order of creating the listener before an instance is created.
-
Automatically configures user data on automatically scaling groups. This creates the correct configuration to associate a cluster to AMIs.
-
Validates parameter combinations early. This exposes AWS CloudFormation issues earlier, thus saving you deployment time. For example, depending on the task, it's easy to misconfigure the memory settings. Previously, you would not encounter an error until you deployed your app. But now the AWS CDK can detect a misconfiguration and emit an error when you synthesize your app.
-
Automatically adds permissions for Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) if you use an image from Amazon ECR.
-
Automatically scales. The AWS CDK supplies a method so you can autoscalinginstances when you use an Amazon EC2 cluster. This happens automatically when you use an instance in a Fargate cluster.
In addition, the AWS CDK prevents an instance from being deleted when automatic scaling tries to kill an instance, but either a task is running or is scheduled on that instance.
Previously, you had to create a Lambda function to have this functionality.
-
Provides asset support, so that you can deploy a source from your machine to Amazon ECS in one step. Previously, to use an application source you had to perform several manual steps, such as uploading to Amazon ECR and creating a Docker image.
See ECS for details.
Important
The ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService
constructs we'll be using includes numerous AWS components, some of which have non-trivial costs if left provisioned in your AWS account, even if you don't use them. Be sure to clean up (cdk destroy) after completing this example.
Let's start by creating a directory to hold the AWS CDK code, and then creating a AWS CDK app in that directory.
mkdir MyEcsConstruct
cd MyEcsConstruct
cdk init --language typescript
mkdir MyEcsConstruct
cd MyEcsConstruct
cdk init --language javascript
mkdir MyEcsConstruct
cd MyEcsConstruct
cdk init --language python
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
mkdir MyEcsConstruct
cd MyEcsConstruct
cdk init --language java
You may now import the Maven project into your IDE.
mkdir MyEcsConstruct
cd MyEcsConstruct
cdk init --language csharp
You may now open src/MyEcsConstruct.sln
in Visual Studio.
Run the app and confirm that it creates an empty stack.
cdk synth
You should see a stack like the following, where CDK-VERSION is the version of the CDK and NODE-VERSION is the version of Node.js. (Your output may differ slightly from what's shown here.)
Resources:
CDKMetadata:
Type: AWS::CDK::Metadata
Properties:
Modules: aws-cdk=CDK-VERSION,@aws-cdk/core=CDK-VERSION,@aws-cdk/cx-api=CDK-VERSION,jsii-runtime=node.js/NODE-VERSION
Install the AWS construct library modules for Amazon EC2 and Amazon ECS.
npm install @aws-cdk/aws-ec2 @aws-cdk/aws-ecs @aws-cdk/aws-ecs-patterns
npm install @aws-cdk/aws-ec2 @aws-cdk/aws-ecs @aws-cdk/aws-ecs-patterns
pip install aws_cdk.aws_ec2 aws_cdk.aws_ecs aws_cdk.aws_ecs_patterns
Using your IDE's Maven integration (e.g., in Eclipse, right-click your project and choose Maven > Add Dependency), install the following artifacts from the group software.amazon.awscdk
:
ec2
ecs
ecs-patterns
Choose Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution in Visual Studio and add the following packages.
Amazon.CDK.AWS.EC2
Amazon.CDK.AWS.ECS
Amazon.CDK.AWS.ECS.Patterns
Tip
If you don't see these packages in the Browse tab of the Manage Packages for Solution page, make sure the Include prerelease checkbox is ticked.
For a better experience, also add the Amazon.Jsii.Analyzers
package to provide compile-time checks for missing required properties.
There are two different ways to run your container tasks with Amazon ECS:
- Use the
Fargate
launch type, where Amazon ECS manages the physical machines that your containers are running on for you. - Use the
EC2
launch type, where you do the managing, such as specifying automatic scaling.
For this example, we'll create a Fargate service running on an ECS cluster fronted by an internet-facing Application Load Balancer.
Add the following AWS Construct Library module imports to the indicated file.
File: lib/my_ecs_construct-stack.ts
import * as ec2 from "@aws-cdk/aws-ec2";
import * as ecs from "@aws-cdk/aws-ecs";
import * as ecs_patterns from "@aws-cdk/aws-ecs-patterns";
File: lib/my_ecs_construct-stack.js
const ec2 = require("@aws-cdk/aws-ec2");
const ecs = require("@aws-cdk/aws-ecs");
const ecs_patterns = require("@aws-cdk/aws-ecs-patterns");
File: my_ecs_construct/my_ecs_construct_stack.py
from aws_cdk import (core, aws_ec2 as ec2, aws_ecs as ecs,
aws_ecs_patterns as ecs_patterns)
File: src/main/java/com/myorg/MyEcsConstructStack.java
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.ec2.*;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.ecs.*;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.ecs.patterns.*;
File: src/MyEcsConstruct/MyEcsConstructStack.cs
using Amazon.CDK.AWS.EC2;
using Amazon.CDK.AWS.ECS;
using Amazon.CDK.AWS.ECS.Patterns;
Replace the comment at the end of the constructor with the following code.
const vpc = new ec2.Vpc(this, "MyVpc", {
maxAzs: 3 // Default is all AZs in region
});
const cluster = new ecs.Cluster(this, "MyCluster", {
vpc: vpc
});
// Create a load-balanced Fargate service and make it public
new ecs_patterns.ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService(this, "MyFargateService", {
cluster: cluster, // Required
cpu: 512, // Default is 256
desiredCount: 6, // Default is 1
taskImageOptions: { image: ecs.ContainerImage.fromRegistry("amazon/amazon-ecs-sample") },
memoryLimitMiB: 2048, // Default is 512
publicLoadBalancer: true // Default is false
});
const vpc = new ec2.Vpc(this, "MyVpc", {
maxAzs: 3 // Default is all AZs in region
});
const cluster = new ecs.Cluster(this, "MyCluster", {
vpc: vpc
});
// Create a load-balanced Fargate service and make it public
new ecs_patterns.ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService(this, "MyFargateService", {
cluster: cluster, // Required
cpu: 512, // Default is 256
desiredCount: 6, // Default is 1
taskImageOptions: { image: ecs.ContainerImage.fromRegistry("amazon/amazon-ecs-sample") },
memoryLimitMiB: 2048, // Default is 512
publicLoadBalancer: true // Default is false
});
vpc = ec2.Vpc(self, "MyVpc", max_azs=3) # default is all AZs in region
cluster = ecs.Cluster(self, "MyCluster", vpc=vpc)
ecs_patterns.ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService(self, "MyFargateService",
cluster=cluster, # Required
cpu=512, # Default is 256
desired_count=6, # Default is 1
task_image_options=ecs_patterns.ApplicationLoadBalancedTaskImageOptions(
image=ecs.ContainerImage.from_registry("amazon/amazon-ecs-sample")),
memory_limit_mib=2048, # Default is 512
public_load_balancer=True) # Default is False
Vpc vpc = Vpc.Builder.create(this, "MyVpc")
.maxAzs(3) // Default is all AZs in region
.build();
Cluster cluster = Cluster.Builder.create(this, "MyCluster")
.vpc(vpc).build();
// Create a load-balanced Fargate service and make it public
ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService.Builder.create(this, "MyFargateService")
.cluster(cluster) // Required
.cpu(512) // Default is 256
.desiredCount(6) // Default is 1
.taskImageOptions(
ApplicationLoadBalancedTaskImageOptions.builder()
.image(ContainerImage.fromRegistry("amazon/amazon-ecs-sample"))
.build())
.memoryLimitMiB(2048) // Default is 512
.publicLoadBalancer(true) // Default is false
.build();
var vpc = new Vpc(this, "MyVpc", new VpcProps
{
MaxAzs = 3 // Default is all AZs in region
});
var cluster = new Cluster(this, "MyCluster", new ClusterProps
{
Vpc = vpc
});
// Create a load-balanced Fargate service and make it public
new ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateService(this, "MyFargateService",
new ApplicationLoadBalancedFargateServiceProps
{
Cluster = cluster, // Required
DesiredCount = 6, // Default is 1
TaskImageOptions = new ApplicationLoadBalancedTaskImageOptions
{
Image = ContainerImage.FromRegistry("amazon/amazon-ecs-sample")
},
MemoryLimitMiB = 2048, // Default is 256
PublicLoadBalancer = true // Default is false
}
);
Save it and make sure it runs and creates a stack.
cdk synth
The stack is hundreds of lines, so we don't show it here. The stack should contain one default instance, a private subnet and a public subnet for the three Availability Zones, and a security group.
Deploy the stack.
cdk deploy
AWS CloudFormation displays information about the dozens of steps that it takes as it deploys your app.
That's how easy it is to create a Fargate-powered Amazon ECS service to run a Docker image.
To avoid unexpected AWS charges, destroy your AWS CDK stack after you're done with this exercise.
cdk destroy