Book Image

Docker on Amazon Web Services

By : Justin Menga
Book Image

Docker on Amazon Web Services

By: Justin Menga

Overview of this book

Over the last few years, Docker has been the gold standard for building and distributing container applications. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leader in public cloud computing, and was the first to offer a managed container platform in the form of the Elastic Container Service (ECS). Docker on Amazon Web Services starts with the basics of containers, Docker, and AWS, before teaching you how to install Docker on your local machine and establish access to your AWS account. You'll then dig deeper into the ECS, a native container management platform provided by AWS that simplifies management and operation of your Docker clusters and applications for no additional cost. Once you have got to grips with the basics, you'll solve key operational challenges, including secrets management and auto-scaling your infrastructure and applications. You'll explore alternative strategies for deploying and running your Docker applications on AWS, including Fargate and ECS Service Discovery, Elastic Beanstalk, Docker Swarm and Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). In addition to this, there will be a strong focus on adopting an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach using AWS CloudFormation. By the end of this book, you'll not only understand how to run Docker on AWS, but also be able to build real-world, secure, and scalable container platforms in the cloud.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Chapter 11. Managing ECS Infrastructure Life Cycle

A fundamental ongoing activity associated with operating ECS infrastructure is the requirement to manage the life cycle of your ECS container instances. In any production-grade scenario, you will be required to patch your ECS container instances, and ensure the core components of your ECS container instances such as the Docker Engine and ECS agent are updated frequently to ensure you have access to the latest features, and security and performance enhancements. In an immutable infrastructure world where your ECS container instances are considered "cattle", the standard approach is that you destroy and replace your ECS container instances by rolling in new Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), rather than taking the traditional approach of patching pets and keeping your ECS container instances around for a long period of time. Another common use case where you need to manage the life cycle is related to Auto Scaling—for example, if you scale your...