Unlock Cost Savings and Performance with AWS Graviton for Containers
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Advantages of AWS Graviton
- Migrating to AWS Graviton with AWS Container Services
- 3.1. Overview of AWS Graviton
- 3.2. Benefits of Graviton
- 3.3. Containers and Graviton Compatibility
- 3.4. Migrating to Graviton Step-by-Step
- Running Containers on AWS Graviton with Amazon ECS
- 4.1. Introduction to Amazon ECS
- 4.2. Running Containers on Fargate
- 4.3. Using Graviton with ECS EC2
- Running Containers on AWS Graviton with Amazon EKS
- 5.1. Introduction to Amazon EKS
- 5.2. Routing Containers to Graviton Instances
- 5.3. Using Karpenter for Scalability
- Samsung Electronics' Journey to AWS Graviton
- 6.1. Introduction to Samsung Electronics
- 6.2. Samsung TV Plus and Graviton Migration
- 6.3. Troubleshooting and Optimization
- Conclusion
- References
🚀 Introduction
In this article, we will explore the advantages of AWS Graviton and learn how to migrate and run containers on Graviton instances using AWS Container Services. We will also hear about Samsung Electronics' journey to Graviton and their experience with the migration process.
🏆 The Advantages of AWS Graviton
AWS Graviton is a custom AWS silicon that uses 64-bit Arm processor cores. It provides several benefits for running containers, including:
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Cost Savings: Graviton offers the best price-performance in Amazon EC2 for a range of workloads. It costs up to 20% less per instance hour than comparable EC2 instances, resulting in significant cost savings.
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Energy Efficiency: Graviton uses up to 60% less energy than comparable EC2 instances, helping both Amazon and users achieve their sustainability goals.
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Performance: Graviton is supported by all major container orchestrators and runtimes. It provides excellent performance for a wide range of workloads, ensuring efficient and smooth container operations.
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Compatibility: Graviton supports multi-architecture container images, allowing you to build and deploy containers that can run on both X86 and Graviton instances.
☁️ Migrating to AWS Graviton with AWS Container Services
3.1 Overview of AWS Graviton
AWS Graviton is custom AWS silicon that is tailored to meet the diverse needs of customers' workloads, including web services, databases, caches, API services, and business logic processors. It offers efficient and cost-effective solutions for running containers on AWS.
3.2 Benefits of Graviton
By migrating to AWS Graviton, users can experience the following benefits:
- Best price-performance in Amazon EC2 for a broad array of workloads
- Up to 20% cost savings per instance hour compared to comparable EC2 instances
- Up to 60% less energy consumption, contributing to sustainability goals
3.3 Containers and Graviton Compatibility
Graviton is compatible with all major container orchestrators and runtimes, making it a seamless choice for running containers on AWS. Container runtimes, including Docker Engine and Containerd, support multi-architecture containers and automatically pull the right image based on the target architecture.
Migrating to Graviton is a flexible process that can be done gradually, starting with identifying workloads that are a good fit for Graviton and incrementally migrating them while still keeping X86 instances for workloads that require them.
3.4 Migrating to Graviton Step-by-Step
Migrating to AWS Graviton involves the following steps:
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Identify Workloads: Determine which workloads would be a good fit for Graviton and create a plan to migrate them gradually.
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Build Container Images: Build Docker images that are compatible with Graviton by using Graviton-specific or multi-architecture image options. This ensures that the containers can run on both X86 and Graviton instances.
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Provision Compute: Choose the Graviton or mixed instances that you want to run your containers on. Provision the compute resources using ECS capacity providers, such as the DCS capacity provider, Cluster Auto Scaler, or managed node groups with EKS.
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Deploy Applications: Deploy your applications to the Graviton instances using the container orchestration tool of your choice, such as Amazon ECS or Amazon EKS. Monitor the deployment process and ensure proper task placement on the Graviton instances.
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testing and Optimization: Perform integration testing, unit testing, and performance testing against the Graviton instances. Optimize your containers for better cost efficiency and performance on Graviton.
With these steps, you can easily migrate your containers to AWS Graviton and take advantage of its cost savings, energy efficiency, and compatibility.
📦 Running Containers on AWS Graviton with Amazon ECS
4.1 Introduction to Amazon ECS
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a highly scalable, fast, and secure container orchestration service provided by AWS. It is compatible with Graviton and offers easy deployment and management of containers on AWS.
4.2 Running Containers on Fargate
With ECS Fargate, you can run your containers on Graviton instances without the need to manage your own compute infrastructure. By configuring the task definition's runtime platforms architecture to ARM64, Fargate will automatically schedule your containers on Graviton instances. This simplifies the deployment process and allows you to focus on building your container images.
4.3 Using Graviton with ECS EC2
For ECS EC2, you can schedule your tasks on Graviton instances by using placement constraints and capacity provider strategies. By defining placement constraints that require the Graviton instances with ARM64 architecture, your tasks will be provisioned on the Graviton instances. You can also use ECS capacity providers to manage your Graviton resources and ensure efficient task placement.
⚙️ Running Containers on AWS Graviton with Amazon EKS
5.1 Introduction to Amazon EKS
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is a managed Kubernetes service provided by AWS. It is compatible with Graviton and allows you to run containers on Graviton instances using Kubernetes.
5.2 Routing Containers to Graviton Instances
With EKS, you can route specific pods to Graviton instances using nodeSelector or nodeAffinity. By defining nodeSelector or nodeAffinity rules that match the ARM64 architecture, you can ensure that the pods are scheduled on the Graviton instances. This gives you the flexibility to use Graviton instances for specific workloads while still supporting mixed architectures.
5.3 Using Karpenter for Scalability
Karpenter is an open-source project by AWS that provides efficient and scalable cluster auto-scaling for Kubernetes. It is architecture-aware and can provision Graviton nodes when needed based on the specified requirements. By utilizing Karpenter, you can achieve operational excellence and cost optimization by dynamically scaling your Graviton instances based on workload demands.
📺 Samsung Electronics' Journey to AWS Graviton
6.1 Introduction to Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics is a global leader in various electronic industries, including mobile, TV, home appliances, and more. The company has successfully migrated its services, such as Samsung TV Plus, to AWS Graviton instances, experiencing benefits in cost optimization, performance, and reducing carbon emissions.
6.2 Samsung TV Plus and Graviton Migration
Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service that provides hundreds of channels to Samsung mobile phone users. By migrating to Graviton, Samsung Electronics was able to reduce the cost of running their application. They gradually migrated their C5 instances to Graviton and achieved significant cost savings.
6.3 Troubleshooting and Optimization
During the migration process, Samsung Electronics encountered some challenges, such as Pod restarts and Java compatibility issues. They successfully resolved these issues by updating their Java version, tuning Java runtime options, and optimizing their dependencies. Samsung Electronics also took advantage of the Graviton performance improvements, reducing API server response latency.
🎉 Conclusion
Migrating to AWS Graviton and running containers on Graviton instances can provide significant cost savings, energy efficiency, and improved performance for your applications. With the support of AWS Container Services like Amazon ECS and EKS, migrating to Graviton becomes a seamless process. Samsung Electronics' journey to Graviton showcases the benefits and real-world experience of adopting Graviton for their services.
By following the steps outlined in this article and leveraging the compatibility and performance enhancements of Graviton, you can maximize the benefits of running containers on AWS.
📚 References