What You Can Learn from This Article

– Overview of Lambda, ECS, and Batch – Serverless concepts – Container concepts – Pros and cons of each service and their use cases

Introduction

AWS offers a wide variety of computing services, which can be great for application development but may be confusing for beginners. This article will explain three AWS services: AWS Lambda, AWS ECS, and AWS Batch, from the perspectives of:

1. Cost performance

2. Flexibility

3. Functionality

We will dive into the details of these services. To fully understand the content of this article, some knowledge of serverless and container services is required. So, let’s first explain what serverless and container services are.

What is a Serverless Service?

A serverless service is a cloud computing service where the service provider manages the server hardware and infrastructure. Users only use the resources such as server instances and storage capacity as needed, and are charged based on usage. Serverless services have several advantages:

・No need for infrastructure management, which helps reduce costs.

・Development can focus on core tasks, increasing productivity.

・Excellent scalability, capable of handling sudden increases in traffic.

Serverless services are used in various fields such as web application development, mobile app development, data analysis, and IoT. Some representative serverless services include:

・AWS Lambda (introduced in this article)

・Microsoft Azure Functions

・Google Cloud Functions

・IBM Cloud Functions

Serverless services are a growing trend in cloud computing and are expected to become even more widespread.

(For more about serverless services, check here↓)

Which serverless service should you use? AWS Lambda vs Azure Functions vs Cloud Functions

Which serverless service should you use on AWS? AWS Lambda vs AWS Fargate

What is Container Service?

A container service refers to a cloud service that utilizes container technology to deploy, run, and manage applications. Containers are lightweight virtual units that package applications along with their dependencies and runtime environments. By using container services, applications can be deployed more efficiently, scalability is improved, and management becomes easier. Specific benefits include:

・Containers help reduce issues caused by environment discrepancies since the application’s environment is encapsulated within the container.

・Containers are lightweight, start quickly, and allow for efficient resource utilization.

・Scalability is enhanced, enabling flexible response to load fluctuations.

・Containers are ideal for implementing microservices architecture and building loosely coupled applications.

However, when adopting container services, attention should be paid to security, network settings, monitoring, and management. Proper design and best practices are crucial.
Some representative container services include Docker and Kubernetes.

Docker

Docker is a pioneer of container technology, allowing applications and their dependencies to be packaged into containers, fully isolating the runtime environment. Many cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc.) offer managed services for hosting Docker containers, which makes it easy to deploy, scale, and monitor containers.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a container orchestration system that allows for the deployment, scaling, automatic recovery, and version management of multiple containers. Kubernetes is an open-source project widely used by various cloud providers and in on-premises environments. It is highly flexible and scalable, making it suitable for deploying various types of applications.

What is AWS Lambda?

AWS Lambda is a serverless computing service provided by AWS. It allows you to execute code without worrying about servers or clusters. AWS Lambda provides an environment to run code when events occur. Events can include HTTP requests, message queues, database changes, and more. AWS Lambda can be used for web applications, backend services, data analytics, and other purposes.
Benefits of AWS Lambda include:

・No need to manage servers or clusters

・Scalable and automatically runs code each time an event occurs

With AWS Lambda, there’s no need to manage servers or clusters, making it easier to handle server load.

What is Amazon ECS?

Amazon ECS is a fully managed service for running and managing Docker containers, often used in conjunction with Amazon EC2 ¹. ECS allows you to create, deploy, scale, and manage containers. It can be used for various purposes such as web applications, backend services, and data analytics.
Benefits of ECS include:

・Easy container creation, deployment, scaling, and management

・Scalable, allowing automatic adjustment of container numbers based on load

With ECS, container creation, deployment, scaling, and management are simplified, allowing for efficient container operation.

What is AWS Batch?

AWS Batch is a service for running scalable and simple batch processing jobs. AWS Batch allows you to create, schedule, and execute batch processing jobs. It supports automatic scaling of compute instances, adjusting the number of instances according to the batch processing job’s load.
Benefits of AWS Batch include:

・Scalable and simple execution of batch processing jobs

・Supports automatic scaling of compute instances, adjusting based on job load

With AWS Batch, you can run scalable and simple batch processing jobs, efficiently managing your tasks.

Comparison

Availability

• With Lambda, if memory runs out, you can increase the memory amount from the console, and it can handle sudden spikes in requests without issues.
• With ECS, if memory runs out, you cannot increase memory from the console. You need to launch a new instance and set up an environment to run your program again.
• Batch is the same as ECS in this regard.

In terms of availability, Lambda is better.

Flexibility

• Lambda has a limit of 15 minutes for execution time, and the supported development languages are limited to nodeJS, Python, Go, Java, Ruby, .Net, and C#. However, most necessary languages are available for development.
• ECS and Batch allow you to freely select server specifications based on your needs.

In terms of flexibility, ECS and Batch are superior.

Functionality

• Lambda forces a stop after 15 minutes of processing.
• ECS allows processing for more than 15 minutes.
• Batch allows processing for more than 15 minutes and is suitable for larger-scale processing than Amazon ECS.

In terms of functionality, ECS and Batch are recommended.

Cost

• Lambda charges based on usage time and has a free tier of 1 million requests per month.
• ECS charges based on the time EC2 instances are running.
• Batch charges for the compute resources used.

These services have different pricing structures, so it’s difficult to compare them directly. Here’s an example of costs with specific conditions:

・Process running with 128MB memory

・Each API call takes 3 seconds

・1 request per second

Lambda Cost Calculation

・Requests 86,400 (requests/day) * 30 (days) = 2,592,000 requests 2,592,000 – 1,000,000 (free tier) = 1,592,000 requests 1,592,000 / 1,000,000 * 0.20 USD = 0.3184 USD ・Execution time 0.128 (GB/request) * 3 (seconds) = 0.384 (GB-seconds/request) 0.384 * 86,400 (requests/day) * 30 (days) = 995,328 GB-seconds 995,328 – 400,000 (free tier) = 595,328 GB-seconds 595,328 * 0.0000166667 USD = 9.9222 USD
Total: 0.3184 + 9.9222 = 10.2406 USD

EC2 Cost Calculation

For a t3.nano instance (2 vCPUs, 0.5GiB memory): 0.0068 USD/hour * 24 (hours) * 30 (days) = 4.896 USD

AWS Batch

For a t3.nano instance with 2 vCPUs and 0.5 GiB of memory:
Calculation:
0.0068 USD/hour * 24 hours * 30 days = 4.896 USD

Use Cases

AWS Lambda is typically used for small-scale processing, often combined with other services. Specifically, it is frequently used with:

• API Gateway to create API systems that simplify the management and execution of APIs.
• Amazon EventBridge for cron systems, enabling automated tasks like nightly database maintenance or hourly sales data aggregation.
• SQS for asynchronous processing, such as credit card payment processing in e-commerce sites.

Amazon ECS is used for large-scale processing that takes a long time. It is particularly suited for Microservices²,Batch jobs, where tasks are pre-defined and executed in bulk.

Batch is used for batch processing that requires a large number of parallel executions beyond the service quotas of ECS. ³It is typically used in fields such as life sciences, computational chemistry, clinical modeling, and financial services for processing transaction data or analyzing sensitive information. AWS Batch is considered over-spec for general corporate use and is mainly employed by large enterprises and research institutions.

Conclusion

This article explained the AWS computing services: AWS Lambda, Amazon ECS, and AWS Batch. For beginners, Lambda is easier to use, and AWS Batch may be overkill for typical development tasks. If you’re new to AWS development, start with Lambda and once you’re comfortable, try using ECS as well.

Explanation of Terms

1. a service for building virtual servers
2. It is a method of dividing a complex application into multiple simpler services, which can be developed independently, while a batch job is a collection of tasks that are predefined and processed together as a batch.
3. Service quotas are the limits set for each AWS service.