New AWS Container Service EKS offers support for Kubernetes
While Amazon has a variety of proprietary storage options, the company is always listening to user demands, which is why they offer support for both their proprietary Elastic Container Service (ECS) as well as Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS). If you’re just starting on your AWS journey, you’re likely interested in learning about each of these two AWS storage container types.
Read on to learn the particulars of ECS and EKS. It will help you decide which makes more sense for your organization.
What’s the difference between ECS and EKS?
As is the case with most AWS offerings, Amazon’s goal is often to take a current technology and develop its own version that lives in the cloud. With ECS, Amazon has developed a proprietary managed and scalable container platform that tightly integrates with other Amazon cloud services.
In contrast, Amazon EKS is a container platform that offers support for Kubernetes. If you’re not familiar with Kubernetes, it’s an open-source platform that automates a variety of Linux container operations.
Things to keep in mind if you choose EKS
If you’re already using Kubernetes, you may want to continue to use it in the AWS cloud. EKS is offered in three AWS availability zones and offers built-in resiliency from the time of setup. EKS runs upstream of Kubernetes, which allows you to connect to it in the same way you would if you were using a self-managed instance of Kubernetes.
Which container choice is best?
Determining which container service to use with AWS depends on a variety of factors. If you’re looking to use containers in a variety of different computing environments, then EKS is likely your best bet. EKS offers support for Google and other cloud providers – so if you’re looking to interface with these other platforms, it’s best to stick with EKS. While EKS does offer cloud provider flexibility, this doesn’t mean that it’s a panacea in terms of managing containers on AWS. Kubernetes was obviously not developed by AWS, so you’re going to either have to work with Kubernetes directly or try to resolve problems on your own if you run into issues.
On the other hand, ECS is likely your better option if you’re an avid AWS user. ECS was built for AWS from the ground up, offering virtually unlimited scalability when compared to EKS. You’re able to run large workloads on ECS – much larger than the ones that can be run using EKS. In addition, you can seamlessly connect ECS to other Amazon services. If you’ve made the decision to stick with AWS for all of your infrastructure needs, then ECS is likely the better option.
Going with ECS or EKS is an individual choice
While the choice is ultimately yours in terms of which container storage solution to go with, it really comes down to your current infrastructure and whether you like the ease of dealing with one vendor, or if you appreciate the separation that comes with using third-party integrations such as Kubernetes.
If you’re still unsure of which container storage option is best for your company, feel free to reach out to the CloudHesive team today at 800-860-2040 or through our online contact form. We’ll be more than happy to take a look at your existing storage infrastructure and suggest a cloud-based container solution that will work for your current and future needs.
