Running Windows Containers on AWS: A complete guide to successfully running Windows containers on Amazon ECS, EKS, and AWS Fargate

Description

Scale up your Windows containers seamlessly on AWS powered by field-proven expertise and best practices on Amazon ECS, EKS, and Fargate Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Key FeaturesLeverage the most recent best practices to run and manage Windows containers on AWSLearn about AWS tools to containerize and run Windows containers on AWSDeeper understanding on how Amazon ECS, EKS, and Fargate supports Windows containersBook Description Windows applications are everywhere, from basic intranet applications to high-traffic public APIs. Their prevalence underscores the importance of combining the same tools and experience for managing a modern containerized application with existing critical Windows applications to reduce costs, achieve outstanding operational excellence, and modernize quickly. This comprehensive guide to running and managing Windows containers on AWS looks at the best practices from years of customer interactions to help you stay ahead of the curve. Starting with Windows containers basics, you'll learn about the architecture design that powers Amazon ECS, EKS, and AWS Fargate for Windows containers. With the help of examples and best practices, you'll explore in depth how to successfully run and manage Amazon ECS, EKS, and AWS Fargate clusters with Windows containers support. Next, the book covers day 2 operations in detail, from logging and monitoring to using ancillary AWS tools that fully containerize existing legacy .NET Framework applications into containers without any code changes. The book also covers the most common Windows container operations, such as image lifecycle and working with ephemeral hosts. By the end of this book, you'll have mastered how to run Windows containers on AWS and be ready to start your modernization journey confidently. What you will learnGet acquainted with Windows container basicsRun and manage Windows containers on Amazon ECS, EKS, and AWS FargateEffectively monitor and centralize logs from Windows containersProperly maintain Windows hosts and keep container images up to dateManage ephemeral Windows hosts to reduce operational overheadWork with the container image cache to speed up the container's boot timeWho this book is for This book is targeted towards DevOps engineer, SREs, solution architects, or a Windows sysadmin who wants to learn more about running Windows containers on AWS. In order to learn from this book, you should have a basic understanding of containers, Docker, and Kubernetes. The book is also beneficial for Windows application developers who want to explore how to achieve better application scalability using containers as a compute layer. Table of ContentsWindows Container 101Amazon Web Services - Breadth and DepthAmazon ECS - OverviewDeploying a Windows Container InstanceDeploying an EC2 Windows-Based TaskDeploying a Fargate Windows-Based TaskAmazon EKS - OverviewPreparing the Cluster for OS InteroperabilityDeploying a Windows Node GroupManaging a Windows PodMonitoring and LoggingManaging a Windows Container's Image Life CycleWorking with Ephemeral HostsImplementing a Container Image Cache StrategyAWS Windows Containers Deployment Tools Cover Title Page Copyright and Credits Dedications Contributors Table of Contents Preface Part 1: Why Windows Containers on Amazon Web Services (AWS)? Chapter 1: Windows Container 101 Why are Windows containers an important topic? How does Windows Server expose container primitives? How Windows Server implements resource controls for Windows containers Understanding Windows container base images Enumerating the Windows container image sizes Delving into Windows container licensing on AWS Summary Further reading Chapter 2: Amazon Web Services – Breadth and Depth Why AWS for Windows containers? Understanding how AWS Nitro impacts container performance Learning about AWS container orchestrators Summary Part 2: Windows Containers on Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) Chapter 3: Amazon ECS – Overview Technical requirements Amazon ECS – fundamentals Amazon ECS – task networking Deploying an Amazon ECS cluster with Terraform Why Terraform? Deploying the AWS services Summary Chapter 4: Deploying a Windows Container Instance Technical requirements Amazon ECS-optimized Windows AMIs Amazon ECS agent Right-sizing a Windows container instance Storage Processor Memory Network Deploying a Windows container instance with Terraform Deploying security groups Summary Chapter 5: Deploying an EC2 Windows-Based Task Technical requirements Understanding a task definition Task placement strategies Task placement constraints Setting up AD integration Windows containers and gMSA integration Setting up persistent storage Scheduling an EC2 Windows-based task with Terraform Deploying an EC2 Windows-based task definition Deploying an ECS service Deploying an Application Load Balancer Summary Chapter 6: Deploying a Fargate Windows-Based Task Technical requirements AWS Fargate overview Process isolation mode Hyper-V isolation mode Planning for serverless Windows containers Fargate Windows-based task start-up time Fargate Windows-based task image pull time AWS Fargate Windows-based task use cases Scheduling a Fargate Windows-based task definition with Terraform Deploying a Fargate Windows-based task definition Deploying an ECS service Deploying an ALB Summary Part 3: Windows Containers on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) Chapter 7: Amazon EKS – Overview Amazon EKS – fundamentals Control plane Data plane Amazon VPC CNI for Windows Amazon EKS and Windows support Personal thoughts Summary Chapter 8: Preparing the Cluster for OS Interoperability Setting up the VPC CNI plugin for Windows support Avoiding pod-scheduling disruption Using nodeSelector to avoid pod-schedule disruption Using taints and tolerations to avoid pod schedule disruption Dynamically scaling out Windows pods Summary Chapter 9: Deploying a Windows Node Group Technical requirements Amazon EKS node groups Amazon EKS-optimized Windows AMIs Consuming an EKS-optimized Windows AMI using Terraform Understanding the EKS Windows bootstrap Working with persistent storage using CSI drivers SMB CSI driver high-level overview Managing persistent volumes on Kubernetes Deploying an Amazon EKS cluster with Windows nodes using Terraform Creating security groups Creating an OpenID Connect endpoint and IAM roles for the cluster Creating instance roles for Windows and Linux node groups Enabling VPC CNI Windows support Using ConfigMap to add Kubernetes permissions (RBAC) to a node level Creating a launch template to launch and bootstrap Windows and Linux Amazon EC2 nodes Creating an Auto Scaling group Summary Chapter 10: Managing a Windows Pod Technical requirements Exploring Windows host and Pod resource management Pod memory management Pod CPU management Host CPU management System resource reservations Understanding the Runtime Class use case Understanding Active Directory integration on Kubernetes Credential specs Deploying a Windows Pod on Amazon EKS Connecting to the Amazon EKS cluster Deploying the Windows Pod Summary Part 4: Operationalizing Windows Containers on AWS Chapter 11: Monitoring and Logging Implementing LogMonitor Implementing log forwarding The awslogs driver as a log processor Fluent Bit as a log processor Using Amazon CloudWatch Container Insights Summary Chapter 12: Managing a Windows Container's Image Life Cycle Understanding Microsoft Patch Tuesday Security patch compliance on Windows container images Rebuilding your container image frequently Summary Chapter 13: Working with Ephemeral Hosts The idea behind ephemeral hosts Why custom AMIs Building a custom AMI pipeline Summary Chapter 14: Implementing a Container Image Cache Strategy Why is implementing a container image cache strategy important? Container runtime pull throttling Layer extraction is a serial operation Layer extraction is CPU/disk intensive when Windows Defender antivirus is enabled Speeding up a Windows container startup time Extending EC2 Image Builder with custom components Summary Chapter 15: AWS – Windows Containers Deployment Tools Deploying an Amazon EKS cluster with eksctl Containerizing Windows applications with AWS App2Container Deploying Windows containers with AWS Copilot Summary Index Other Books You May Enjoy