Other Compute Services

Docker

• Docker is a software development platform to deploy applications

• Apps are packaged in containers that can be run on any OS

• Apps run the same, regardless of platform

  • Any machine
  • No compatibility issues
  • Predictable behaviour
  • Less work
  • Easier to maintain and deploy
  • Works with any language, OS and technology

• Containers can be scaled vertically in seconds

• Docker images are stored in Docker Repositories

  • Public: Docker Hub
    • Provides many base images for technologies or OS (Ubuntu, MySQL, Node.js, Java...)
  • Private: Amazon ECR (Elastic Container Registry)

• Use Docker or Virtual Machines

  • Docker is not quite a virtualisation technology
  • Resources are shared with the host, allowing many containers on one server
  • VM architecture: Infrastructure --> Host OS --> Hypervisor --> Many apps on a Guest OS (VM) on EC2 instances
  • Docker architecture: Infrastructure --> Host OS (EC2 Instance) --> Docker Daemon --> Many containers

ECS

Elastic Container Service: A service used to launch Docker containers on AWS

• Must provision and maintain the infrastructure yourself, create EC2 instances beforehand
• AWS takes care of starting / stopping containers
• Integrated with the Application Load Balancer

Fargate

• A service to also launch Docker containers on AWS, but, you do not need to provision the infrastructure
• Serverless
• AWS just runs containers for you based on the CPU / RAM you need

ECR

• Elastic Container Registry: A private Docker Registry on AWS
• This is where you store your Docker images so they can be run by ECS or Fargate

What's serverless?

• Serverless is a new paradigm in which the developers don't have to manage servers anymore, they just deploy code

• Initially, serverless was function as a service (FaaS)

• Pioneered by AWS Lambda but now includes any service that's managed, such as databases, messaging, storage, etc.

• Serverless does not mean there are no servers, it just means you don't have to manage / provision them

• Why use AWS Lambda?

  • EC2:
    • Virtual servers in the Cloud
    • Limited by RAM and CPU
    • Continuously running
    • Scaling means intervention to add / remove servers
  • Lambda:
    • Virtual functions, no servers to manage
    • Limited by time, short executions
    • Run on-demand
    • Automated scaling

• Benefits of AWS Lambda:

  • Pay per request and compute time, free tier of one million AWS Lambda requests and 400,000 GBs of compute time
    • $0.20 per million requests after the initial million free requests (requests)
    • $1.00 for 600,000 GBs (duration)
  • Integrated with the whole AWS suite of services
  • Event-Driven: Functions get invoked by AWS when needed
  • Integrated with many programming languages:
    • Node.js
    • Python
    • Java
    • C#
    • Golang
    • Ruby
    • Custom Runtime API
    • Lambda Container Image (container image must implement the Lambda Runtime API)
      • ECS / Fargate is preferred for running arbitrary Docker images
  • Easy to monitor through AWS CloudWatch
  • Easy to get more resources per functions (up to 10 GB of RAM, increasing RAM will improve the CPU and network)

Amazon API Gateway

• A fully managed service for developers to easily create, publish, maintain, monitor and secure APIs
• Serverless and scalable
• Supports RESTful APIs and WebSocket APIs
• Support for security, user authentication, API throttling, API keys, monitoring

AWS Batch

• Fully managed batch processing at any scale

• A batch job is a job with a start and end (not continuous)

• Efficiently run 100,000s of computing batch jobs on AWS

• Batch will dynamically launch EC2 instances or Spot Instances

• Batch provisions the compute / memory

• The user only submits or schedules batch jobs

• Batch jobs are defined as Docker images and run on ECS

• Good for cost optimisations and focusing less on infrastructure

• Batch vs. Lambda:

  • Lambda:
    • Time limit
    • Limited runtimes (few programming languages)
    • Limited temporary disk space
    • Serverless
  • Batch:
    • No time limit
    • Any runtime as long as it's packaged as a Docker image
    • Rely on EBS / instance store for disk space
    • Relies on EC2 (can be managed by AWS)

Amazon Lightsail

• A bit of a standalone service providing virtual servers, storage, databases and networking
• Low and predictable pricing
• Simpler alternative to using EC2, RDS, ELB, EBS, Route 53
  • Good for people with little cloud experience
• Can setup notifications and monitoring for your Lightsail resources
• Use cases: Simple web apps, websites, dev / test environment
• High availability but no auto-scaling, limited AWS integrations