Docker CLI Now Has a Direct Path into Amazon Web Services – InApps 2022

Docker developers should have an easier time shipping their multi-container apps to Amazon Web Services, thanks to a new integration between Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) and the Docker command-line interface (CLI).

“This eliminates a set of complexities that developers have to take” to get their apps onto Amazon Web Services, said Justin Graham, Docker vice president of products, in an interview with InApps. “We want these two things to work as seamlessly as possible.”

Users of Docker Compose and Docker Desktop will be able to directly deploy their apps on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and AWS Fargate using ECS commands built into the Docker CLI.

Typically, developers will use Docker Compose to describe how an app works across multiple container images via a YAML file. Previously, however, moving a containerized app from the local dev environment to ECS would require a number of different manual steps. They may have to step away from the Docker desktop and jump into the AWS interface to configure Amazon VPC, Amazon ECS Cluster, Amazon ECS Task definition, or settings for other services. Now, the developer will be able to complete these tasks directly in the Docker CLI.

“By creating and switching to a new context in Docker, a developer can simply issue an up command via Docker Compose, which will create those resources automatically in AWS,” wrote Carmen Puccio, AWS principal solutions architect, in a blog post detailing the new feature. In a demo on this post, a developer uploads to AWS a web application using the additional ECS syntax that is provided within the Docker CLI. The user defines the AWS Profile, ECS cluster name, and the AWS Region.

The latest version of Docker Desktop Edge contains a beta version of this feature, initially as a plugin. The capability will be baked into Docker products and be generally available by the end of the year.

Docker worked with AWS to build in this new capability as part of the company’s strategy to work more closely with third-party service providers.

“We want to make sure developers, wherever they run the applications, have a path to run those applications that is as easy, efficient and low complexity as possible,” Graham said, pointing to other recent integrations with Microsoft and Snyk.

For more information, check out the Docker session at 3:50 PM Pacific time today, at the AWS Cloud Containers Conference.

Amazon Web Services and Snyk are sponsors of InApps.

Feature image by MikesPhotos from Pixabay.

InApps is a wholly owned subsidiary of Insight Partners, an investor in the following companies mentioned in this article: Docker.