- Learn AWS
- Architecture
- Containerised services
Architecture pattern
AWS Containerised services architecture
when a long-running service that is not a single function
Between EC2 and Lambda. The container is your unit of deployment, Fargate runs it without you owning the host, and the load balancer routes to healthy tasks. The right answer when a process must stay warm, run longer than Lambda allows, or use a runtime Lambda does not.
What it runs through
In the order a request or a record moves through it. Each one links to the page that explains it.
- ALBApplication Load Balancer
- ECS on FargateAmazon ECS on AWS Fargate
- RDSAmazon RDS
Signals in a brief that point here
Phrases that, when you meet them in a scenario, mean this shape rather than another. They are the tell, and they are what an exam question is built around.
- “already containerised”
- “microservices”
- “long-running process”
- “custom runtime”
What it costs you
Tasks bill for the whole time they are up, idle or not — so a bursty, low-volume workload is cheaper on Lambda.
Every shape has one. A design decision with no stated downside is usually a decision nobody has finished making.
Learn the services in it
- AWS ELBSpreads incoming traffic across healthy targets in several Availability Zones, with four kinds of load balancer: Application, Network, Gateway and Classic.
- AWS RDS and AuroraManaged relational databases: six engines run for you, plus Aurora, AWS's own MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine, with standbys, replicas and backups built in.
Shapes it is easily confused with
These run through some of the same services, which is exactly why a brief that fits one can look like it fits another.
Now build it from a brief
Reading a shape and producing one from a scenario that never names a service are different skills, and the exam asks for the second. The scenarios give you the brief; you draw the architecture and it is scored against what the brief requires.