AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
📦 Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service)
🧠🚢
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Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service . It helps you run and
manage Docker containers on a cluster of EC2 instances or using serverless (Fargate).
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● No need to install your own container orchestration software.
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● Integrates with Elastic Load Balancing, IAM, CloudWatch, and more.
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● Two launch types: EC2 and Fargate.
📌 Exam Tip: ECS is AWS’s proprietary alternative to Kubernetes (which is EKS). Know when
to use ECS vs EKS.
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🧩 What are ECS Tasks?
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A Task is the basic unit of work in ECS 🛠️.
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● A task is launched from a Task Definition (like a recipe📄for containers).
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● A task can run one or more containers.
● You define CPU, memory, networking, and IAM roles in the task definition.
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📌 Exam Tip: Tasks run your containers. They're often asked about in context of Task
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Definitions and Service Auto Scaling.
⚙️ ECS - EC2 Launch Type (Features in short)
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● You manage the EC2 instances yourself 🧑💻
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● You pay for the EC2 instances even if they’re underutilized.
● Best when you need deep control over the infrastructure (e.g., custom AMIs, logging
agents).
● Use Auto Scaling Groups to scale ECS capacity.
📌 Exam Tip: Choose EC2 launch type when you want OS-level control or have steady
workloads.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
☁️ ECS - Fargate Launch Type (Features in short)
● Serverless container hosting 💨🧳 — no need to manage EC2 instances.
● You only pay for CPU and memory used by containers.
● Easily scalable and great for microservices.
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📌 Exam Tip: Fargate = no server management. Used when you want simplicity and
cost-efficient scaling.
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🔐 IAM Roles for ECS (In Short)
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🧾
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1. Task Role : Assigned to the ECS task so containers can access AWS services (e.g.,
S3, DynamoDB).
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2. Execution Role 🚀: Used by ECS to pull container images from ECR and write logs
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to CloudWatch.
🖥️: Lets EC2 instances register to ECS
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3. Container Instance Role (for EC2 launch type)
and talk to other AWS services.
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📌 Exam Tip: Understand the difference between Task Role vs Execution Role.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
🚀 Create ECS Cluster (Fargate + EC2)
1. Go to ECS > Clusters > Create Cluster
2. Name your cluster: DemoCluster 🏷️
3. Select Capacity Providers:
✅ AWS Fargate (serverless)
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○
○ ✅ Amazon EC2 -Create Auto Scaling Group
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Infrastructure :-
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4. Keep Network settings default
5. Provisioning:
○ Choose On-demand or Spot ⚡
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
6. EC2 Settings:
○ AMI: Amazon Linux 2 🐧
○ Instance type: t2.micro 💻
○ IAM role: Create one if needed 🔐
○ Capacity: Min 0, Max 2
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7. Key Pair: Create one if you want SSH access 🔑
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8. EBS Volume: Default 30 GB 💽
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9. Click Create ✅
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🔍 Check ASG for ECS Cluster
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1. Go to EC2 Console → Auto Scaling Groups
2. Look for ASG named like ECS-Cluster-DemoCluster-...
3. Verify:
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✅
📈
○ Instance type
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○ Capacity (e.g., 0–2)
VPC/Subnet
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
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✅
Go to ECS > Clusters > DemoCluster > Infrastructure tab to see attached Capacity
Providers like FARGATE and EC2 .
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Capacity Providers in ECS define where and how your tasks run — on Fargate, EC2, or
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Spot .
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● FARGATE → Serverless, no EC2 to manage 🚀
● EC2 → Use your own EC2 instances 🖥️
💰
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● FARGATE_SPOT → Run on spare capacity, cheaper
🚀
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Change ASG Desired Capacity from 0 to 1
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🖥️
● Set desired capacity to 1 in your Auto Scaling Group.
● AWS launches a new EC2 instance.
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🤝
● The instance automatically registers itself to the ECS Cluster. Check in Container
Instances
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
🚀 Create a New Task Definition in ECS (Fargate) —
Example with nginxdemos/hello 🎯
This example will walk you through creating a simple ECS Task Definition using Fargate,
which runs a container from the image nginxdemos/hello. This is perfect for testing or
learning the ECS basics!
🧱 Step-by-Step Guide
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1️⃣ Create a New Task Definition
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● Go to Amazon ECS Console
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✅
● Choose Task Definitions → Create new task definition —> Give Name
● Select FARGATE as the launch type ( serverless)
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2️⃣ Infrastructure Requirements
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● Operating system/Architecture: Linux/X86_64 (default)
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● Network mode: awsvpc (auto-selected for Fargate)
● Task Size:
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○ CPU: 0.5 vCPU
○ Memory: 1 GB
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(You can change this as per your workload needs)
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
3️⃣ Task Roles
● Task Role: Leave blank if your container doesn't need to call AWS services.
● Task Execution Role:
○ Click Create new role (ECS will create a role with permissions to pull the image
and log to CloudWatch)
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4️⃣ Add Container
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● Click Add container
● Container name: hello-container (or any name you like)
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Image URI:
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CopyEdit
nginxdemos/hello
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● 👉 This image is hosted on Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/nginxdemos/hello/
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● Port mappings:
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○ Container port: 80
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○ Protocol: tcp
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✅ Leave all other settings as default
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
5️⃣ Review and Create
● Review your configuration
● Click Create
● You now have a task definition ready to be used in a service or for a one-time task run!
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
🚀 Launch ECS Task Definition as a Service (Fargate + ALB)
1️⃣ Go to ECS → Clusters → Select DemoCluster
Click Services → then Add Service
2️⃣ Service Details
● Launch type: Select Launch Type ( 🟦 FARGATE)
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● Deployment type: Replica
● Keep other values as default
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3️⃣ Environment Configuration
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● Cluster: DemoCluster
● Launch type: FARGATE
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● Platform version: LATEST
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4️⃣ Networking
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● VPC: Select your VPC
● Subnets: Select multiple subnets (high availability across AZs)
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● Security group:
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○ Select Create a new security group
○ Name: nginxdemos-hello
○ Description: SG For ECS Nginx Demo
○ Inbound rule:
■ Type: HTTP
■ Port: 80
■ Source: Anywhere (0.0.0.0/0 and ::/0)
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
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5️⃣ Load Balancing
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●
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Enable "Use load balancing"
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● Load balancer type: Application Load Balancer
● Container to load balance:
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○ Choose nginxdemos-Hello 80:80
● Create a new load balancer:
○ Name: DemoALBforECS
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
6️⃣ Listener & Target Group
● Create new listener:
○ Port: 80
○ Protocol: HTTP
● Create new target group:
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○ Name: tg-nginxdemos-hello
○ Protocol: HTTP
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○ Deregistration delay: 300
○ Health check protocol: HTTP
○ Health check path: /
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Keep Rest Of The Configuration Default For The Same.
✅ Final Step: Click Create Service
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
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Click On The Service
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You Can See The Service is Linked To Target Group.
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You can see the Target Group is linked to Application Load Balancer.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
✅ Verifying Load Balancer and Target Group for nginx
Container
🚀
Once your ECS container (running nginx) is up and running, follow the steps below to verify
everything is working perfectly!
🔹 Step 1: Check Registered Targets in the Target Group
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1. Go to the EC2 Console.
2. In the left menu, click on Target Groups under Load Balancing.
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3. Select your target group (used by the ALB).
4. Click on the Targets tab.
You will see a registered IP address (e.g., 172.31.42.191).
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👉 This IP address is the private IP of your container running nginx.
✅ Make sure the Health status shows "Healthy" 💚 — this means the Load Balancer can
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reach your container.
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🔹 Step 2: Test the Application Using the Load Balancer
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1. Go to the EC2 Console → Load Balancers.
2. Select your ALB (Application Load Balancer).
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3. Copy the DNS name of the ALB (e.g.,
demoalbforecs-xxxxxxxx.ap-south-1.elb.amazonaws.com).
4. Paste it in your web browser and hit Enter. 🌐
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
5. You should see the nginx welcome page with some server details like:
● Server address
● Server name
● Date and URI
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🔍 ECS Task & Logs Verification
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Check Task Details
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1. Go to ECS > Clusters > Your Cluster (e.g., DemoCluster) > Services > Your
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Service.
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2. Click on the Tasks tab.
3. Click on the running Task ID.
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4. Under the Configuration tab, you can see:
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○ Task details (e.g., Task ARN, Status, ENI, Public IP, Subnet)
○ Platform version, Memory/CPU allocation, Launch type (FARGATE)
○ ✅ Confirm task is in Running state.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
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📄 View Container Logs
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1. Inside the task, switch to the Logs tab.
2. You will see log entries (like health check calls from ELB).
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○ Helps verify container responses (e.g., HTTP 200 from Nginx).
○ Useful for debugging or checking traffic.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
🛠️ Check ECS Service Events
1. Go to the Service again in your ECS Cluster.
2. Click the Events tab.
3. You'll see recent activity such as:
○ Task launched and registered to target group
○ Deployment completed
○ Service reached a steady state.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
🔄 Scaling Tasks in ECS (Fargate)
🚀 Current State
You currently have 1 running task in your ECS Service
🔧 Step-by-Step to Scale Tasks
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1. Go to ECS > Clusters > Your Cluster > Services.
2. Select your service (e.g., nginxdemos-Hello-service-Demo1).
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➡️
3. Click on Update.
4. In the Desired Tasks field, change the value from 1 3.
5. Click Update to save.
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✅ This tells ECS to run 3 copies (replicas) of your task.
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⚙️ What Happens Behind the Scenes?
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● Fargate provisions 2 more containers (total: 3) to meet the new desired count.
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● Each container runs the same task definition (image: nginxdemos/hello) but on
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separate ENIs (Elastic Network Interfaces) inside your subnet.
● These are managed by ECS and Fargate, meaning:
○ No need to manage EC2 instances
○ Fargate handles task placement, network setup, and IP assignment automatically
● All tasks get registered to the Target Group linked with your ALB (Application Load
Balancer).
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
🌐 Web Page Behavior After Scaling
1. Open the DNS of your ALB in a browser.
🎯
2. Refresh the page several times.
3. You’ll notice:
○ The IP address shown on the Nginx demo page keeps changing.
○ Why? Because the ALB is load balancing the traffic across all 3 ECS
containers.
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○ This verifies that your service is horizontally scalable and traffic is being
handled efficiently.
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AWS ECS Hands-On & Notes By - Vaibhav Chaudhari
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