AWS Fargate
What is Fargate?
Fargate is Serverless Compute for Containers.
To understand Fargate, you have to understand the problem with standard containers (ECS/EKS) on EC2:
The "Old" Way (EC2 Launch Type): You want to run a Docker container. First, you have to provision a cluster of virtual machines (EC2s). You have to update their OS, patch them, and worry about "bin packing" (fitting your containers onto the servers efficiently).
The Fargate Way: You just tell AWS: "Run this Docker container. It needs 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of RAM." AWS finds a place to run it instantly. You never see the server, you don't manage the OS, and you only pay for the resources that specific container uses.
The Analogy:
EC2 is like renting a house to throw a party (you have to clean up, manage space, and pay rent even if no one shows up).
Fargate is like booking a table at a restaurant (you show up, eat, pay only for your meal, and leave. The restaurant manages the building).
How it fits with ECS & EKS
This is the most confusing part for beginners: Fargate is not a replacement for ECS or EKS. It is an option you choose when using them.
ECS on EC2: You manage the fleet of servers. Cheaper for massive scale, but more work.
ECS on Fargate: You manage nothing. Slightly more expensive per hour, but saves massive amounts of engineering time.
Equivalents
Cloud
Equivalent Service
Why?
GCP
Cloud Run (or GKE Autopilot)
Cloud Run is Google's "Serverless Container" service. Like Fargate, you give it a container, and it runs it without you seeing the VM.
Azure
Azure Container Apps (or ACI)
Azure Container Instances (ACI) was the pioneer here, allowing you to run containers without managing VMs.
Data Engineer Note:
You will often use Fargate for sporadic data tasks. For example, if you have a Python script that scrapes a website once a day, you don't want an EC2 server running 24/7. You package the script in a container and run it on ECS Fargate. It spins up, runs the script, shuts down, and costs you pennies.
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