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

Designing a custom Amazon Machine Image


Before you learn how to build a custom Amazon Machine Image, it is important to understand why you would want or need to build your own custom image.

The reasons for this vary depending on your use case or organizational requirements, however in general there are a number of reasons why you might want to build a custom image:

  • Custom storage configuration: The default ECS-optimized AMI ships with a 30 GB volume that includes 8 GB for the operating system partition and a 22 GB volume for storing Docker images and container filesystems. One aspect of your configuration that I typically recommend to change is that, by default, Docker volumes, which do not use layered filesystems, are stored on the 8 GB operating system partition. This approach generally should be avoided for production use cases, and instead you should mount a dedicated volume for storing Docker volumes.
  • Installation of additional packages and tools: In keeping with the minimalist philosophy...