AWS ECS on EC2 Terraform Deployment

Overview

This repository contains Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform to deploy a containerized application (Node.JS) on AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) with EC2 launch type. The infrastructure is designed with high availability, scalability, and security best practices in mind.

Architecture Diagram

The infrastructure includes the following:

• Networking Layer:

  • VPC with CIDR 10.0.0.0/16
  • 2 Public Subnets across different AZs
  • 2 Private Subnets across different AZs
  • NAT Gateways for private subnet internet access
  • Internet Gateway for public subnet access

• Compute Layer:

  • ECS Cluster with EC2 launch type
  • Auto Scaling Group for EC2 instances
  • Application Load Balancer for traffic distribution
  • ECS Tasks running containerized applications

• Data Layer:

  • DynamoDB Tables for User, Product, and Order management

• Monitoring, Security & Others:

  • Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and logging
  • IAM roles and policies for secure access management
  • Security Groups for network access control
  • ECR Repository that contains the docker image

Prerequisites

• AWS Account with administrative access or required permission
• Terraform (>= 1.0.0)
• AWS CLI configured with appropriate credentials
• Docker for container image building

Quick Start Guide

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/sagar-uprety/ecs-on-ec2-terraform.git
cd ecs-on-ec2-terraform

2. You need an S3 bucket as a backend for Terraform state. Create one if you have not already and update the backend configuration in versions.tf:

  ...
  backend "s3" {
    bucket  = "dev-terraform-state-bucket" # update the bucket name here
    region  = "us-east-2"
    encrypt = true
    key     = "main/terraform.tfstate"
  }
  ...

3. Initialize Terraform:

terraform init

4. Configure your deployment:

# Edit dev.tfvars with your configuration

5. Review the deployment plan:

terraform plan --var-file="dev.tfvars"

6. Apply the infrastructure:

terraform apply --var-file="dev.tfvars"

7. Cleanup the infrastructure (Caution: If you do not destroy the resources, cost might incure):

terraform destroy --var-file="dev.tfvars"

Project Structure

.
├── README.md
├── main.tf                 # Main Terraform configuration
├── variables.tf           # Input variables declaration
├── outputs.tf            # Output values configuration
├── providers.tf          # Provider configuration
├── versions.tf           # Terraform version constraints and backend configuration 
├── dev.tfvars          # Development environment variables
└── .gitignore         # Git ignore rules

Project Structure

• main.tf: Defines the core infrastructure for ecs_cluster, ecs_service, and supporting resources
• variables.tf: Input variables for parameterization and sensitive data
• provider.tf: Specifies the AWS provider
• output.tf: Defines outputs for the tf configs
• dev.tfvars: Variables specific to the dev environment
• versions.tf: Terraform version constraints and backend configuration
• locals.tf: local value to be used in main.tf
• .pre-commit-config.yaml: git pre-commit configuration
• .gitignore: Lists files to exclude from version control

Configuration

Required Variables

Variable Name	Description	Type	Default
environment	Environment name	string	``
application	Application name	string	``
owner	Resource owner	string	``
region	AWS region to deploy resources	string	``

Optional Variables

Refer to variables.tf for a complete list of optional variables and their default values.

Security Considerations

• All EC2 instances are deployed in private subnets
• Security groups follow the principle of least privilege
• IAM roles are scoped to minimum required permissions

Monitoring and Logging

The deployment includes:

• CloudWatch metrics for ECS services and tasks
• Container insights for performance monitoring
• ALB access logs (stored in S3)
• ECS task logs in CloudWatch Logs

Application Source Repository

The sample e-commerce application (Node.js) with source code and dockerfile can be found here

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• AWS ECS Documentation
• Terraform AWS Provider
• AWS Well-Architected Framework