Container orchestrators

Multiple container orchestration technologies for ease of consumption

Most application workloads deployed on DuploCloud are in Docker containers. The rest consist of serverless functions, Big data workloads like Amazon EMR jobs, Airflow and SageMaker. DuploCloud abstracts the complexity of container orchestration technologies, allowing you to focus on the deployment, updating, and debugging of your containerized application.

Among the technologies supported are:

• Kubernetes: On AWS, DuploCloud supports orchestration using Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). On GCP we support GKE auto pilot and node pool based. On Azure we support AKS and Azure web apps.

• Built-in (DuploCloud): DuploCloud platform's Built-in container management has the same interface as the docker run command, but it can be scaled to manage hundreds of containers across many hosts, providing capabilities such as associated load balancers, DNS, and more.

• AWS ECS Fargate: Fargate is a technology you can use with Elastic Container Service (ECS) to run containers without having to manage servers or clusters of EC2 instances.

Container orchestration feature matrix

Use the feature matrix below to compare the features of the orchestration technologies that DuploCloud supports. Whatever option you choose, DuploCloud can help you implement it through the Portal or the Terraform API.

One dot indicates a low rating, two dots indicate a medium rating, and three dots indicate a high rating. For example, Kubernetes has a low ease-of-use rating but a high rating for stateful applications.

Feature	Kubernetes	Built-In	ECS Fargate
Ease of use
Features and ecosystem tools
Suitability for stateful apps
Stability and maintenance
AWS cost
Multi-cloud (w/o DuploCloud)

Feature definitions

Use the definitions below to understand how each feature in the matrix above is rated compared to Kubernetes, Built-in, or ECS Fargate.

• Ease of Use:

  • Kubernetes is extensible and customizable, but not without a cost in ease-of-use. The DuploCloud platform reduces the complexities of Kubernetes, making it comparable with other container orchestration technologies in ease-of-adoption.

  • DuploCloud's Built-In orchestration mirrors docker run. You can Secure Shell (SSH) into a virtual machine (VM) and run docker commands to debug and diagnose. If you have an application with a few stateless microservices or configurations that use environment variables or AWS services such as SSM, S3, or Secret store, consider using DuploCloud's Built-in container orchestration.

  • ECS Fargate contains proprietary constructs (such as task definitions, tasks, or services) that can be hard to learn. As Fargate is serverless, you have no control over the Host Docker, so commands such asdocker ps and docker restart are unavailable. This makes debugging a container crash very difficult and time-consuming. DuploCloud simplifies using Fargate with an out-of-the-box setup for logging, shell access, and abstraction of proprietary constructs and behavior.

• Features and Ecosystem Tools: Kubernetes is rich in additional built-in features and ecosystem tools, most notably Secrets Management and ConfigMaps. Built-In and ECS rely on native AWS services such as AWS Secrets Manager, SSM, S3, and so on. While Kubernetes features have an equivalent in AWS, third parties tend to publish their software as Kubernetes packages (Helm Charts). Some examples are Influx DB, Time Series DB, Prefect, etc.

• Suitability for Stateful apps: Stateful applications should be avoided in AWS. Instead, managed cloud storage solutions should be leveraged for the best availability and SLA compliance. In scenarios where this is undesirable due to cost, Kubernetes offers the best solution. Kubernetes uses StatefulSets and Volumes to implicitly manage Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes. With Built-in and ECS, you must use a shared EFS drive, which may not have feature parity with Kubernetes volume management.

• Stability and Maintenance: Even though Kubernetes is highly stable, it is an open-source product. The native customizability and extensibility of Kubernetes can lead to points of failure when a mandatory cluster upgrade is needed, for example. This complexity often leads to support costs from third-party vendors. Maintenance can be especially costly with EKS, as versions are frequently deprecated, requiring you to upgrade the control plane and data nodes. While DuploCloud automates this upgrade process, it still requires careful planning and execution.

• AWS Cost: While the EKS control plane cost is relatively low, operating an EKS environment without business support (at an additional premium) is not recommended. If you are a small business, you may be able to add the support tier when you need it and remove it when not needed to reduce costs.

• Multi-Cloud: For many enterprises and independent software vendors this is, or will soon be, a requirement. While Kubernetes provides this benefit, DuploCloud's implementation is much easier to maintain and implement.