In case you’re new to the world of AWS cloud services, you would possibly assume that there are few main variations between EC2 and ECS. Not solely do their names sound related, however they overlap in performance in key methods — notably as a result of ECS workloads can run on high of EC2 infrastructure in some circumstances.
That stated, it will be a mistake to deal with EC2 and ECS as an identical. As this text explains, they’re distinct providers that cater to distinctive use circumstances.
What Is EC2?
Amazon EC2 — brief for Elastic Compute Cloud — is a service within the Amazon Internet Companies (AWS) cloud that gives entry to servers through an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) structure.
In less complicated phrases, EC2 is a option to “lease” cloud-based server cases. In case you want a server to host a workload and you do not need to purchase, arrange, and handle your individual bodily server, you might buy an EC2 occasion and host your workload within the cloud as an alternative.
Chances are you’ll hear people say that EC2 is a cloud service for accessing digital servers, since a lot of the server occasion varieties out there via EC2 are virtual machines. Nevertheless, EC2 choices additionally embrace bare-metal cloud servers, so it isn’t strictly for VMs.
EC2 debuted in 2006, making it one of many first main providers on AWS and one of many first extensively used cloud providers typically.
What Is ECS?
Amazon Elastic Container Service, or ECS, is a managed container orchestration service within the AWS cloud. Its objective is to simplify the method of deploying and managing containers throughout a cluster of servers.
You may as well orchestrate containers utilizing options like Kubernetes — in actual fact, AWS gives a separate managed container orchestration service, referred to as Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), that does simply that.
Nevertheless, ECS exists alongside EKS as a result of Amazon initially developed ECS in 2014 as a homegrown container orchestrator, earlier than Kubernetes gained massive popularity. Though the overwhelming majority of container-based workloads at the moment are orchestrated utilizing Kubernetes, Amazon continues to supply ECS as a substitute choice.
EC2 vs. ECS: Similarities and Variations
At a excessive stage, the similarities between EC2 and ECS are easy sufficient: Each present methods to deploy workloads on the AWS cloud. The variations are additionally simple: EC2 is a service for organising cloud-based servers (on which you’ll then deploy purposes), whereas ECS is a service for deploying containerized purposes.
However these summaries do not do full justice to how EC2 compares to ECS. Let’s dive a bit of deeper.
Similarities Between EC2 and ECS
Past the truth that EC2 and ECS are each cloud providers that may host workloads, they’re additionally related in that EC2 server cases are a technique of offering the underlying infrastructure that hosts containers on ECS.
To grasp totally what meaning, you’ll want to perceive what are referred to as ECS “launch varieties,” or methods of deploying containers with ECS. There are two foremost choices:
-
The Fargate launch kind: In case you select the Fargate launch kind choice, AWS supplies and manages the underlying servers for you; you needn’t fear about them. This strategy is usually referred to as serverless as a result of from the consumer’s perspective, there aren’t any servers to handle.
-
EC2 launch kind: Beneath this launch kind, you arrange EC2 cases to create a cluster of servers, then use ECS to orchestrate containers operating on these servers. On this case, it’s important to handle the setup of the servers your self (though AWS manages the bodily infrastructure, for the reason that servers run within the AWS cloud).
(Amazon additionally gives a 3rd ECS launch kind, referred to as ECS Anyplace, that permits you to deploy containers by yourself, on-prem servers as a part of a hybrid cloud structure, however that is probably not related for understanding the variations between EC2 and ECS.)
In case you select the EC2 launch kind for ECS, you find yourself utilizing EC2 and ECS concurrently. That is the principle manner during which EC2 and ECS overlap. Word, nonetheless, that this is only one strategy; in case you select a Fargate launch kind, EC2 will not be a part of the image when utilizing ECS.
Variations Between EC2 and ECS
Past the choice to make use of EC2 as an ECS launch kind, EC2 and ECS are distinct in most different respects. The primary variations embrace:
-
Function and use case: As famous above, EC2 helps you to arrange cloud-based servers, whereas ECS is for deploying containers. These are distinct use circumstances.
-
Tooling: You possibly can work with each EC2 and ECS through the AWS Console or the CLI, however each use distinct tooling.
-
Prices: EC2 and ECS have totally different pricing fashions. General pricing is analogous in case you use the EC2 launch kind for ECS as a result of in that case, your main value is the price of EC2 cases that host your workloads. However Fargate pricing is totally different (and customarily greater).
-
Management: With EC2, you will have full management over a lot of the expertise stack that hosts your purposes as a result of you’ll be able to select your EC2 server occasion kind, working system, and configuration settings. ECS is extra restrictive since you’re restricted to the configuration choices supported by the ECS container orchestrator.
Basically, in case your purpose is to deploy non-containerized purposes, you will need to use EC2. In case you are deploying containers and need to orchestrate them with ECS (versus another orchestrator like Kubernetes), use ECS.
