Amazon offers a variety services to help customers manage their container services. Two of the most popular services are Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service and Amazon Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS). Amazon EKS is the best method to start running and scaling Kubernetes, while Amazon ECS provides advanced secure, reliable and scalable methods of running containers.
Both services can be combined with other AWS services on a global scale, and they support a wide variety of compute options. How are they different? We will distinguish Amazon EKS from Amazon ECS based on their overview, features, working, as well as other areas. Let’s get started!
What is Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service?
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, (Amazon EKS), can be considered a managed service that runs Kubernetes on AWS. It does not require any need to install, operate, or maintain its Kubernetes control plane. Kubernetes is an open-source framework that automates containerized applications in scaling, deploying, and administering.
EKS:
1. Amazon EKS Cloud for Application Deployment
Image Source: AWS 2. Amazon EKS Anywhere: Deploying applications
Image Source: AWSWhat’s Amazon Elastic Container Service?
Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), is a scalable container management solution that allows for the control and administration of containers in a cluster. The containers are defined in a task definition. This is used to run individual tasks or tasks within a service. A service is a configuration that allows you run and maintain a certain number of tasks simultaneously within a cluster. AWS Fargate also allows you to run tasks and services on a serverless environment. You can also run your tasks and services on a cluster Amazon EC2 instances to gain more control over your infrastructure.
ECS:
Image Source: AWSAmazon ECS environment running in AWS Fargate
Image Source: AWSWhat features are included in Amazon EKS?
These features include:
1. Managed Kubernetes Clusters
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service is a managed Kubernetes services that can be used to run Kubernetes on AWS. This service can manage Kubernetes control nodes’ availability, scalability and scaling automatically.
scheduling containers
Management of the availability of applications
Cluster data storage and other key tasks
This also includes:
Service Integrations
AWS Controllers For Kubernetes (ACK), allows you to manage AWS services from Kubernetes. ACK makes it easy to build scalable, highly available Kubernetes apps with AWS services.
Hosted Kubernetes Console
Amazon EKS is a Kubernetes-specific console. EKS can also be used by cluster operators as well as application developers to organize and visualize their Kubernetes apps running on Amazon EKS.
EKS add-ons
EKS add-ons are a common operational software that enhances Kubernetes’ operational functionality. EKS can be used to install and maintain this software. You can choose the add-ons you want to run in your Amazon EKS cluster. This includes Kubernetes tools that allow for observability, networking and autoscaling.
2. Use eksctl to launch nodes and single-line management
Eksctl is an open-source command line tool that can help you quickly get up and running with Amazon EKS. Executing eksctl create cluster will create an Amazon EKS Cluster for running applications. It can also be used to simplify cluster management and operations, such as adding-ons and managing nodes.
This also includes:
Windows Support
EKS allows you both to operate Windows worker nodes and Linux worker nodes. This allows you to manage applications from both operating systems within the same cluster.
ARM Support
AWS Graviton2 processors are used to power ARM-based EC2 instances. This provides a significant increase in performance and capabilities, while also saving you money. Containers are designed to increase the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of your applications. Combining the two will result in a remarkable price performance.
3. Networking & Security
Amazon EKS is a cloud-based technology solution that connects to AWS services and technology partners to make it easy to provide security for Kubernetes clusters. This includes:
Service discovery
AWS Cloud Map allows you to give your application resources custom names, and track their location as they change over the time. This helps increase the application’s availability.
Service mesh
Service Mesh standardizes how each microservice communicates with the application. This allows for the creation and operation complex microservices applications. AWS App Mesh makes setting up high availability and visibility for your application easy.
VPC Native Networking
EKS clusters are hosted on an Amazon VPC. This allows them to use their own security group and network ACLs. Amazon EKS works with Project Calico’s network policy engine. This allows for fine-grained networking policies to support Kubernetes workloads.
4. Hybrid deployments
EKS can be used to run containerized apps that have very low latency compared to on-premises systems. AWS Outposts can be viewed as a fully managed solution that extends the AWS infrastructure, APIs, tools, and services to any associated site. EKS on Outposts allows you to manage your containers on-premises.