What Is AWS AppConfig?

Use AWS AppConfig, a capability of AWS Systems Manager, to create, manage, and quickly deploy application configurations. A configuration is a collection of settings that influence the behavior of your application. You can use AWS AppConfig with applications hosted on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, AWS Lambda, containers, mobile applications, or IoT devices. To view examples of the types of configurations you can manage by using AWS AppConfig, see Example configurations.

Simplify tasks with AWS AppConfig

AWS AppConfig helps simplify the following tasks:

• Configure

  Source your configurations from Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), AWS AppConfig hosted configurations, Parameter Store, Systems Manager Document Store. Use AWS CodePipeline integration to source your configurations from Bitbucket Pipelines, GitHub, and AWS CodeCommit.

• Validate

  While deploying application configurations, a simple typo could cause an unexpected outage. Prevent errors in production systems using AWS AppConfig validators. AWS AppConfig validators provide a syntactic check using a JSON schema or a semantic check using an AWS Lambda function to ensure that your configurations deploy as intended. Configuration deployments only proceed when the configuration data is valid.

• Deploy and monitor

  Define deployment criteria and rate controls to determine how your targets retrieve the new configuration. Use AWS AppConfig deployment strategies to set deployment velocity, deployment time, and bake time. Monitor each deployment to proactively catch any errors using AWS AppConfig integration with Amazon CloudWatch. If AWS AppConfig encounters an error, the system rolls back the deployment to minimize impact on your application users.

AWS AppConfig use cases

AWS AppConfig can help you in the following use cases:

• Application tuning – Introduce changes carefully to your application that can be tested with production traffic.

• Feature toggle – Turn on new features that require a timely deployment, such as a product launch or announcement.

• Allow list – Allow premium subscribers to access paid content.

• Operational issues – Reduce stress on your application when a dependency or other external factor impacts the system.

Benefits of using AWS AppConfig

AWS AppConfig offers the following benefits for your organization:

• Reduce errors in configuration changes

  AWS AppConfig reduces application downtime by enabling you to create rules to validate your configuration. Configurations that aren't valid can't be deployed. AWS AppConfig provides the following two options for validating configurations:

  • For syntactic validation, you can use a JSON schema. AWS AppConfig validates your configuration by using the JSON schema to ensure that configuration changes adhere to the application requirements.

  • For semantic validation, you can call an AWS Lambda function that runs your configuration before you deploy it.

• Deploy changes across a set of targets quickly

  AWS AppConfig simplifies the administration of applications at scale by deploying configuration changes from a central location. AWS AppConfig supports configurations stored in Systems Manager Parameter Store, Systems Manager (SSM) documents, and Amazon S3. You can use AWS AppConfig with applications hosted on EC2 instances, AWS Lambda, containers, mobile applications, or IoT devices.

  Targets don't need to be configured with the Systems Manager SSM Agent or the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) instance profile required by other Systems Manager capabilities. This means that AWS AppConfig works with unmanaged instances.

• Update applications without interruptions

  AWS AppConfig deploys configuration changes to your targets at runtime without a heavy-weight build process or taking your targets out of service.

• Control deployment of changes across your application

  When deploying configuration changes to your targets, AWS AppConfig enables you to minimize risk by using a deployment strategy. You can use the rate controls of a deployment strategy to determine how fast you want your application targets to retrieve a configuration change.

Get started with AWS AppConfig

The following blogs can help you learn more about AWS AppConfig and its capabilities:

• Introduction to AWS AppConfig deployment – Learn about safe deployment of application configuration settings with AWS AppConfig.

• Automating feature release using AWS AppConfig deployment – Learn how to automate feature release using AWS AppConfig integration with AWS CodePipeline.

• Deploying application configuration to serverless workloads – Learn how to use an AWS AppConfig Lambda extension to deploy application configuration to serverless workloads.

How AWS AppConfig works

At a high level, there are three processes for working with AWS AppConfig:

1. Configure AWS AppConfig to work with your application.

2. Enable your application code to periodically check for and retrieve configuration data from AWS AppConfig.

3. Deploy a new or updated configuration.

The following sections describe each step.

Configure AWS AppConfig to work with your application

To configure AWS AppConfig to work with your application, you set up three types of resources, which are described in the following table.

Resource	Details
Application	In AWS AppConfig, an application is simply an organizational construct like a folder. This organizational construct has a relationship with some unit of executable code. For example, you could create an application called MyMobileApp to organize and manage configuration data for a mobile application installed by your users.
Environment	For each application, you define one or more environments. An environment is a logical deployment group of AWS AppConfig applications, such as applications in a Beta or Production environment. You can also define environments for application subcomponents such as the Web, Mobile, and Back-end components for your application. You can configure Amazon CloudWatch alarms for each environment. The system monitors alarms during a configuration deployment. If an alarm is triggered, the system rolls back the configuration.
Configuration profile	A configuration profile enables AWS AppConfig to access your configuration data in its stored location. You can create configuration profiles for the following data formats and locations: Configuration data in YAML, JSON, and other formats stored in the AWS AppConfig hosted configuration store Configuration data stored as objects in an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket Pipelines stored in AWS CodePipeline Secrets stored in AWS Secrets Manager Standard and secure string parameters stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store Configuration data in SSM documents stored in the Systems Manager document store A configuration profile can also include optional validators to ensure your configuration data is syntactically and semantically correct. AWS AppConfig performs a check using the validators when you start a deployment. If any errors are detected, the deployment stops before making any changes to the targets of the configuration.

Enable your application code to check for and retrieve configuration data

Your application retrieves configuration data by first establishing a configuration session using the AWS AppConfig Data StartConfigurationSession API action. Your session's client then makes periodic calls to GetLatestConfiguration to check for and retrieve the latest data available.

When calling StartConfigurationSession, your code sends the following information:

• Identifiers (ID or name) of an AWS AppConfig application, environment, and configuration profile that the session tracks.

• (Optional) The minimum amount of time the session's client must wait between calls to GetLatestConfiguration.

In response, AWS AppConfig provides an InitialConfigurationToken to be given to the session's client and used the first time it calls GetLatestConfiguration for that session.

When calling GetLatestConfiguration, your client code sends the most recent ConfigurationToken value it has and receives in response:

• NextPollConfigurationToken: the ConfigurationToken value to use on the next call to GetLatestConfiguration.

• NextPollIntervalInSeconds: the duration the client should wait before making its next call to GetLatestConfiguration. This duration may vary over the course of the session, so it should be used instead of the value sent on the StartConfigurationSession call.

• The configuration: the latest data intended for the session. This may be empty if the client already has the latest version of the configuration.

For more information and to view example AWS CLI commands that show how to retrieve a configuration using the AWS AppConfig Data StartConfigurationSession and GetLatestConfiguration API actions, see Receiving the configuration.

Deploy a new or updated configuration

AWS AppConfig enables you to deploy configurations in the manner that best suits the use case of your applications. You can deploy changes in seconds, or you can roll them out slowly to assess the impact of the changes. The AWS AppConfig resource that helps you control deployments is called a deployment strategy. A deployment strategy includes the following information:

• Total amount of time for a deployment to last. (DeploymentDurationInMinutes).

• The percentage of targets to retrieve a deployed configuration during each interval. (GrowthFactor).

• The amount of time AWS AppConfig monitors for alarms before considering the deployment to be complete and no longer eligible for automatic rollback. (FinalBakeTimeInMinutes).

You can use built-in deployment strategies that cover common scenarios, or you can create your own. After you create or choose a deployment strategy, you start the deployment. Starting the deployment calls the StartDeployment API action. The call includes the IDs of an application, environment, configuration profile, and (optionally) the configuration data version to deploy. The call also includes the ID of the deployment strategy to use, which determines how the configuration data rolls out.

Note

For information about AWS AppConfig language-specific SDKs, see AWS AppConfig SDKs.

Pricing for AWS AppConfig

There is a charge to use AWS AppConfig. For more information, see AWS Systems Manager Pricing.

AWS AppConfig quotas

Information about AWS AppConfig endpoints and service quotas along with other Systems Manager quotas is in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Note

For information about quotas for services that store AWS AppConfig configurations, see About configuration store quotas and limitations.