Automatically build CI/CD pipelines and Amazon ECS clusters for microservices using AWS CDK

Created by Varsha Raju (AWS)

Environment: PoC or pilot

Technologies: DevOps; Containers & microservices; Modernization; Infrastructure

AWS services: AWS CodeBuild; AWS CodeCommit; AWS CodePipeline; Amazon ECS; AWS CDK

Summary

This pattern describes how to automatically create the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and underlying infrastructure for building and deploying microservices on Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS). You can use this approach if you want to set up proof-of-concept CI/CD pipelines to show your organization the benefits of CI/CD, microservices, and DevOps. You can also use this approach to create initial CI/CD pipelines that you can then customize or change according to your organization’s requirements. 

The pattern’s approach creates a production environment and non-production environment that each have a virtual private cloud (VPC) and an Amazon ECS cluster configured to run in two Availability Zones. These environments are shared by all your microservices and you then create a CI/CD pipeline for each microservice. These CI/CD pipelines pull changes from a source repository in AWS CodeCommit, automatically build the changes, and then deploy them into your production and non-production environments. When a pipeline successfully completes all of its stages, you can use URLs to access the microservice in the production and non-production environments.

Prerequisites and limitations

Prerequisites 

• An active Amazon Web Services (AWS) account.

• An existing Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket that contains the starter-code.zip file (attached).

• AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), installed and configured in your account. For more information about this, see Getting started with the AWS CDK in the AWS CDK documentation.

• Python 3 and pip, installed and configured. For more information about this, see the Python documentation.

• Familiarity with AWS CDK, AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeBuild, CodeCommit, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR), Amazon ECS, and AWS Fargate.

• Familiarity with Docker.

• An understanding of CI/CD and DevOps.

Limitations

• General AWS account limits apply. For more information about this, see AWS service quotas in the AWS General Reference documentation.

Product versions

• The code was tested using Node.js version 16.13.0 and AWS CDK version 1.132.0.

Architecture

The diagram shows the following workflow:

1. An application developer commits code to a CodeCommit repository.

2. A pipeline is initiated.

3. CodeBuild builds and pushes the Docker image to an Amazon ECR repository

4. CodePipeline deploys a new image to an existing Fargate service in a non-production Amazon ECS cluster.

5. Amazon ECS pulls the image from the Amazon ECR repository into a non-production Fargate service.

6. Testing is performed using a non-production URL.

7. The release manager approves the production deployment.

8. CodePipeline deploys the new image to an existing Fargate service in a production Amazon ECS cluster

9. Amazon ECS pulls the image from the Amazon ECR repository into the production Fargate service.

10. Production users access your feature by using a production URL.

Technology stack  

• AWS CDK

• CodeBuild

• CodeCommit 

• CodePipeline

• Amazon ECR 

• Amazon ECS 

• Amazon VPC

Automation and scale

You can use this pattern’s approach to create pipelines for microservices deployed in a shared AWS CloudFormation stack. The automation can create more than one Amazon ECS cluster in each VPC and also create pipelines for microservices deployed in a shared Amazon ECS cluster. However, this requires that you provide new resource information as inputs to the pipeline stack.

Tools

• AWS CDK – AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is a software development framework for defining cloud infrastructure in code and provisioning it through AWS CloudFormation.

• AWS CodeBuild – AWS CodeBuild is a fully managed build service in the cloud. CodeBuild compiles your source code, runs unit tests, and produces artifacts that are ready to deploy.

• AWS CodeCommit – AWS CodeCommit is a version control service that enables you to privately store and manage Git repositories in the AWS Cloud. CodeCommit eliminates the need for you to manage your own source control system or worry about scaling its infrastructure.

• AWS CodePipeline  – AWS CodePipeline is a continuous delivery service you can use to model, visualize, and automate the steps required to release your software. You can quickly model and configure the different stages of a software release process. CodePipeline automates the steps required to release your software changes continuously.

• Amazon ECS – Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) is a highly scalable, fast container management service that is used for running, stopping, and managing containers on a cluster. You can run your tasks and services on a serverless infrastructure that is managed by AWS Fargate. Alternatively, for more control over your infrastructure, you can run your tasks and services on a cluster of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances that you manage.

• Docker – Docker helps developers to pack, ship, and run any application as a lightweight, portable, and self-sufficient container.

Code 

The code for this pattern is available in the cicdstarter.zip and starter-code.zip files (attached).

Epics

Set up your environment

Task	Description	Skills required
Set up the working directory for AWS CDK.	Create a directory named cicdproject on your local machine. Download the cicdstarter.zip file (attached) into the cicdproject directory and unzip it. This creates a folder named cicdstarter. Run the cd <user-home>/cicdproject/cicdstarter command.  Set up the Python virtual environment by running the python3 -m venv .venv command. Run the source ./.venv/bin/activate command. Configure your AWS environment by running the aws configure command or by using the following environment variables:  AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY  AWS_DEFAULT_REGION	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure

Create the shared infrastructure

Task	Description	Skills required
Create the shared infrastructure.	In your working directory, run the cd cicdvpcecs command.  Run the pip3 install -r requirements.txt command to install all required Python dependencies Run the cdk bootstrap command to set the AWS environment for the AWS CDK.  Run the cdk synth --context aws_account=<aws_account_ID> --context aws_region=<aws-region> command.  Run the cdk deploy --context aws_account=<aws_account_ID> --context aws_region=<aws-region> command. The AWS CloudFormation stack creates the following infrastructure: A non-production VPC named cicd-vpc-ecs/cicd-vpc-nonprod A production VPC named cicd-vpc-ecs/cicd-vpc-prod A non-production Amazon ECS cluster named cicd-ecs-nonprod A production Amazon ECS cluster named cicd-ecs-prod	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure
Monitor the AWS CloudFormation stack.	Sign in to the AWS Management Console, open the AWS CloudFormation console, and then choose the cicd-vpc-ecs stack from the list.  In the stack details pane, choose the Events tab and monitor the progress of your stack creation.	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure
Test the AWS CloudFormation stack.	After the cicd-vpc-ecs AWS CloudFormation stack is created, ensure that the cicd-vpc-ecs/cicd-vpc-nonprod and cicd-vpc-ecs/cicd-vpc-prod VPCs are created.  Ensure that the cicd-ecs-nonprod and cicd-ecs-prod Amazon ECS clusters are created. Important: Make sure that you record the IDs for the two VPCs and the security group IDs for the default security groups in both VPCs.	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure

Create a CI/CD pipeline for a microservice

Task	Description	Skills required
Create the infrastructure for the microservice.	Name your microservice. For example, this pattern uses myservice1 as the microservice's name. In your working directory run the cd <working-directory>/cdkpipeline command. Run the pip3 install -r requirements.txt command. Run the full cdk synth command that is available in the Additional information section of this pattern. Run the full cdk deploy command that is available in the Additional information section of this pattern. Note: You can also provide the values for both commands by using the cdk.json file in the directory.	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure
Monitor the AWS CloudFormation stack.	Open the AWS CloudFormation console and monitor the progress of the myservice1-cicd-stack stack. Eventually, the status changes to CREATE_COMPLETE.	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure
Test the AWS CloudFormation stack.	On the AWS CodeCommit console, verify that a repository named myservice1 exists and contains the starter code. On the AWS CodeBuild console, verify that a build project named myservice1 exists. On the Amazon ECR console, verify that an Amazon ECR repository named myservice1 exists. On the Amazon ECS console, verify that a Fargate service named myservice1 exists in both a non-production and production Amazon ECS cluster. On the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) console, verify that the non-production and production Application Load Balancers are created. Record the DNS names of the ALBs. On the AWS CodePipeline console, verify that a pipeline named myservice1 exists. It must have Source, Build, Deploy-NonProd, and Deploy-Prod stages. The pipeline should also have an in progress status. Monitor the pipeline until all stages are complete.  Manually approve it for production. In a browser window, enter the DNS names of the ALBs. The application should display Hello World in the non-production and production URLs.
Use the pipeline.	Open the CodeCommit repository that you created earlier and open the index.js file.  Replace Hello World with Hello CI/CD. Save and commit the changes to the main branch. Verify that the pipeline initiates and that the change goes through the Build, Deploy-NonProd, and Deploy-Prod stages.  Manually approve the production. Both production and non-production URLs should now display Hello CICD.	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure
Repeat this epic for each microservice.	Repeat the tasks in this epic to create a CI/CD pipeline for each of your microservices.	AWS DevOps, Cloud infrastructure

Related resources

• Using Python with AWS CDK 

• AWS CDK Python reference

• Creating an AWS Fargate service using the AWS CDK

Additional information

cdk synth command

cdk synth --context aws_account=<aws_account_number> --context aws_region=<aws_region> --context vpc_nonprod_id=<id_of_non_production VPC> --context vpc_prod_id=<id_of_production_VPC> --context ecssg_nonprod_id=< default_security_group_id_of_non-production_VPC> --context ecssg_prod_id=<default_security_group_id_of_production_VPC> --context code_commit_s3_bucket_for_code=<S3 bucket name> --context code_commit_s3_object_key_for_code=<Object_key_of_starter_code> --context microservice_name=<name_of_microservice>

cdk deploy command

cdk deploy --context aws_account=<aws_account_number> --context aws_region=<aws_region> --context vpc_nonprod_id=<id_of_non_production_VPC> --context vpc_prod_id=<id_of_production_VPC> --context ecssg_nonprod_id=< default_security_group_id_of_non-production_VPC> --context ecssg_prod_id=<default_security_group_id_of_production_VPC> --context code_commit_s3_bucket_for_code=<S3 bucket name> --context code_commit_s3_object_key_for_code=<Object_key_of_starter_code> --context microservice_name=<name_of_microservice> 

Attachments

To access additional content that is associated with this document, unzip the following file: attachment.zip