Migrate from Amazon EC2 to Amazon ECS Managed Instances - Amazon Elastic Container Service
Migration considerationsPrerequisitesStep 1: Update the cluster to use Amazon ECS Managed InstancesStep 2: Update the task definition to have the Amazon ECS Managed Instances capabilityStep 3: Update the service to use the Amazon ECS Managed Instances capacity providerStep 4: Migrate standalone tasks

Migrate from Amazon EC2 to Amazon ECS Managed Instances

Migrate existing workloads from Amazon EC2 to Amazon ECS Managed Instances. This migration allows you to access the full range of Amazon EC2 instance types, capacity reservations, and advanced capabilities while maintaining AWS-managed infrastructure.

Migration considerations

Keep the following considerations in mind when migrating from Amazon EC2 to Amazon ECS Managed Instances:

Task compatibility

Existing task definitions configured for Amazon EC2 are mostly compatible with Amazon ECS Managed Instances. For a list of task definition differences, see Amazon ECS task definition differences for Amazon ECS Managed Instances.

Security model changes

Amazon ECS Managed Instances allows multiple tasks per instance by default. Consider enabling single-task mode if your workloads require stronger isolation.

Instance lifecycle

Amazon ECS Managed Instances have a maximum lifetime of 14 days. Plan for task replacement and use Amazon ECS services for automatic task management.

Pricing changes

With Amazon ECS Managed Instances, you pay for the entire instance plus a management fee, with AWS handling the infrastructure management overhead.

Maintenance windows

Configure maintenance windows using Amazon EC2 event windows to control when Amazon ECS Managed Instances are replaced for patching.

Prerequisites

Before migrating to Amazon ECS Managed Instances, ensure you have:

  • You have the required IAM roles for Amazon ECS Managed Instances. This includes:

    • Infrastructure role - Allows Amazon ECS to make calls to AWS services on your behalf to manage Amazon ECS Managed Instances infrastructure.

      For more information, see Amazon ECS infrastructure IAM role.

    • Instance profile - Provides permissions for the Amazon ECS container agent and Docker daemon running on managed instances.

      For more information, see Amazon ECS Managed Instances instance profile.

  • Understanding of the security model differences between Amazon EC2 and Amazon ECS Managed Instances

Step 1: Update the cluster to use Amazon ECS Managed Instances

Create a capacity provider. When you create a capacity provider with Amazon ECS Managed Instances, it becomes available only within the specified cluster.

For more information, see Creating a capacity provider for Amazon ECS Managed Instances.

Step 2: Update the task definition to have the Amazon ECS Managed Instances capability

Update the task definition so that it has the requiresCapabilities for Amazon ECS Managed Instances.

For more information, see Updating an Amazon ECS task definition using the console.

Step 3: Update the service to use the Amazon ECS Managed Instances capacity provider

Update your existing Amazon ECS service to use the Amazon ECS Managed Instances capacity provider.

For more information, see Updating an Amazon ECS service to use a capacity provider.

Step 4: Migrate standalone tasks

For standalone tasks, specify the Amazon ECS Managed Instances capacity provider when running the task.

For more information, see Running an application as an Amazon ECS task.