Introduction to AWS Fargate

AWS Fargate is a container deployment and management technology. Customers are no longer required to provision, configure, and scale virtual machine clusters to run containers.

AWS Fargate is a service that lets you run containers on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure without managing the infrastructure. Consider it on-demand containers with no underlying manually created infrastructure that is quick to launch and scale. You can manage everything at the container level.

AWS Fargate eliminates the need for users to interact with or worry about servers and clusters. It alleviates the user’s responsibility for infrastructure management. It enables the user to concentrate entirely on efficiently designing the application and developing high-level applications.

Must Explore- What is a cloud administrator?

But, before proceeding any further, let’s go through the topics that we will be covering in this blog:

1. AWS Fargate platform versions
2. How does AWS Fargate work? 
3. Amazon ECS modes
4. AWS Fargate pricing
5. Fargate advantages
6. Fargate limitations
7. Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

AWS Fargate platform versions

Fargate platform version refers to the task infrastructure’s available runtime environments, which are just a combo of the container runtime and kernel versions.

While defining a platform version, you can specify a specific version, such as 1.4.0. If your services require scaling after being deployed and tasks are running. The parent deployment’s version is used to instantiate additional tasks if your services need scaling after they have been deployed and tasks are running.

When a new platform version is released, you can update your service, change the platform version, and force a new deployment whenever a new platform version is released. This replaces your tasks with the most recent version.

How does AWS Fargate work? 

To use Fargate to manage the deployment of your application container, you must have a container stored in a container registry such as DockerHub and set up a task and cluster using ECS or EKS. While AWS Fargate continues to use Elastic Container Service (ECS), you are not in charge of managing the ECS service. To run an application on Fargate, you must first:

1. Have an AWS account.
2. Make your application containerized.
3. Define the CPU and memory needs for your application.
4. Define any IAM / networking policies that are required.

Amazon ECS modes

Amazon ECS has two launch modes:

1. Fargate launch
2. EC2 launch

When using Fargate launch mode, the user only needs to take a few steps before launching the application. Those steps are:

1. Containerize the application that the user has created.
2. Specify the CPU and memory requirements.
3. Define the IAM and networking policies.
4. Start the application.

The EC2 Launch type mode gives the user server-level control. This mode also gives you fine-grained control over the infrastructure that your container applications use. The EC2 launch mode gives you a broader range of customization options. You need these customization options to support specific applications or potential compliance and legal mandates.

AWS Fargate pricing

There are no upfront costs with Amazon Fargate; you just pay for the resources you use. AWS charges Fargate based on the amount of vCPU and memory resources consumed by containerized applications. The service cost changes as per the region in which you receive it. You have to pay for the service per second, with a one-minute minimum charge.

Additional fees may apply if your containers use other Amazon Web Services services or transfer data. If your containers, for example, use Amazon CloudWatch Logs for application logging, you will have to pay for CloudWatch usage as well.

AWS Fargate advantages

Some of the advantages of Fargate are:

Less complexity

Fargate is a technology that provides Container as a Service (CaaS). It eradicates the need for server management. As a result, it is a “serverless” technology. While your containers continue to run on servers, you no longer need to worry about customizing and maintaining the servers.

Must Explore – What is a cloud architect?

AWS handles it for you. You are still in charge of defining the infrastructure parameters required by your containers, such as CPU, storage, and networking. After which, AWS will run your app for as long or as little as you specify.

Secure

From the standpoint of security, complexity is a problem. Fargate alleviates the security burden associated with managing the complexities of ECS or EKS. Fargate runs each task for the pod on its kernel, giving your applications their own isolated compute environment.

Must Explore – Introduction to Cloud Computing

Instead, you incorporate security into the container itself. There are also third-party companies that provide additional security services for Fargate applications.

Less Expensive

When compared to ECS or EKS, Fargate appears to offer a tempting cost-saving opportunity. Fargate only charges you per second that your container workloads are active. It makes no difference how long the VM runs. Fargate Spot can run interruption-tolerant processes, resulting in even more significant savings.

AWS Fargate limitations

Some of the drawbacks of AWS Fargate are:

Less customizable

Fargate may not provide the fine-grained control of a more traditional model. AWS Fargate cannot meet special requirements for compliance, governance, risk management, etc. As a result, it is less customizable.

Fixed regional availability

Fargate service is not available in all regions/zones. Also, far fewer EKS supporting regions support Fargate.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Q1. AWS Fargate supports which use cases?

A1. AWS Fargate supports use cases, such as machine learning applications, microservices architecture applications, batch processing, and cloud migration of on-premises applications.

Q2. What are the benefits of using AWS Fargate?

A2. You specify the content of your application and the networking, storage, and scalability requirements. You don’t need to pay attention to provisioning, patching, cluster capacity management, and infrastructure management. This is one of the most significant benefits of using AWS Fargate.

Q3. Can you use AWS Fargate in the absence of ECS and EKS?
A3. AWS Fargate is a container serverless compute engine that works with Amazon Elastic Container Service and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service. As a result, you cannot use Fargate in the absence of ECS and EKS.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed the AWS Fargate in great detail. If you want to learn more about AWS services, you can refer to these articles:

Top Trending Tech Articles:
Career Opportunities after BTech | Online Python Compiler | What is Coding | Queue Data Structure | Top Programming Language | Trending DevOps Tools | Highest Paid IT Jobs | Most In Demand IT Skills | Networking Interview Questions | Features of Java | Basic Linux Commands | Amazon Interview Questions

Recently completed any professional course/certification from the market? Tell us what liked or disliked in the course for more curated content.

Click here to submit its review with Shiksha Online.