Container Services
Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service)
What it is:
Amazon ECS is a fully managed container orchestration service that allows you to run and scale Docker containers on AWS without needing to manage your own servers.
Why it matters:
- Simplifies containerized application deployment
- Supports Fargate for serverless containers (no instance management)
- Integrates with SageMaker, Lambda, and other AI pipelines
Typical Use Cases:
- Running microservices for AI model inference
- Hosting REST APIs that wrap around ML models
- Scaling backend services that preprocess ML input data
Amazon EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service)
What it is:
Amazon EKS is a fully managed Kubernetes service that lets you run Kubernetes clusters on AWS without manually configuring the control plane.
Why it matters:
- Provides more flexibility and portability than ECS
- Allows you to run AI/ML workloads using K8s-native tools (e.g., Kubeflow, MLflow)
- Scales AI model serving and training pipelines using Kubernetes best practices
Typical Use Cases:
- Running ML pipelines with Kubeflow on Kubernetes
- Managing multi-step model training and deployment workflows
- Hosting AI microservices using containers